About FISH 210
Course Overview
What is science, anyways?
This is a course about the way we explore and seek to understand the natural world around us. What are the alternative philosophies of science? What approaches are available for tackling scientific problems? How does one develop effective experimental and sampling designs? How do you effectively communitate scientific information? This course will provide you the necessary skills and conceptual background needed to design your own research projects and to critically evaluate others.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
(1) Differentiate science from other ways of reaching understanding of the world around us.
(2) Identify the alternative scientific approaches used in aquatic and fishery sciences, and explain the strengths and weaknesses of each
(3) Develop and evaluate effective experimental and sampling designs
(4) Perform fundamental manipulations of data and appropriate statistical analyses
(5) Critically evaluate scientific research
(6) Clearly present results of scientific research as a well-organized and well-written scientific paper.
Course Components
The class consists of a sequence of one-week modules. Every attempt was made to coordinate the lecture and lab schedules, but occasionally the labs and lectures will not directly complement each other.
Lectures (M, W): These will provide background and conceptual material for each course topic.
Labs (M, W or T, Th) . Labs are designed to give you hands-on experience conducting research. Most labs will include an assignment for homework.
Lecture (F) . Friday lecture meetings will be a mix of discussions / conversations about fish and fisheries sciences, summary of term paper assignments, review for exams, or occasionally additional lecture when we have a short week (due to holidays or exams).
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