Biology for Future Elementary Teachers

Here's my current syllabus for an introductory college biology course for undergraduates planning on entering elementary teaching. This is NOT your traditionalcollege biology course. The goal of this course is to give students mastery over theconcepts required of K-8 students in California in a hands-on, experiential way. By the end of the course, students will hopefully gain a deep understanding ofthe major key concepts that are the foundation of biology – deep enough for to teach kids about them.

The course is designed for students to be actively engaged in observing, experimenting,discovering, discussing, and building models during both “lecture” and “lab”sections. Through student explorations, they will develop an understanding ofthe biology concepts that lay beneath their observations. Asignificant portion of the course is also spent discussing and analyzing how people(including young children and yourselves) learn about biology.