The first year program at Hampshire College is designed to organize the process of completing your distribution or breadth "requirement" and to introduce you to various disciplines and the faculty and staff associated with these areas. Human Biology is one of the courses available in the School of Natural Science that is designed to provide you with an experience of being a scientist. It prepares you for more advanced work in the sciences if you wish to pursue one of these fascinating areas of study. It also prepares you to continue to learn on your own if you choose another path for your academic focus.

All 100 level courses in NS are designed to help you in this process, and the tutorial courses are specifically for those students who have as their academic advisor one of the faculty teaching the 100 level courses they have chosen. These tutorial courses allow you to interact more extensively with your advisor, and some course time will be devoted to advising issues and general Hampshire survival skills.

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The links below describe how NS121: Human Biology will help you reach these goals.

NATURAL SCIENCE DIVISION I: GOALS
HOW TO MEET THOSE GOALS
PLANNING YOUR NATURAL SCIENCE DIVISION I
PREPARING YOUR DIVISION I PORTFOLIO

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NATURAL SCIENCE DIVISION I: GOALS

Successful completion of this course will satisfy your Natural Science Division I. This course will provide you with individualized opportunities to engage in scientific investigations that start from questions you pose about the natural world. Your project can use any one or a combination of laboratory, field and literature-based research to better understand and to possibly answer your question. We will help you over the course of the semester to define and shape a scientific question of interest.

The following five criteria are used to determine a student's successful completion of the Natural Science Division I requirements.

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Division I Goals for Students in Natural Science

Engage in active and individualized scientific inquiry. Students start by articulating their own questions about the natural world and then attempt to answer them, individually or in small groups, through an appropriate combination of laboratory, field and literature-based scientific research. Students engage with the material to a depth at which they have a sense of ownership; they are not simply performing teacher-directed exercises. Active engagement and ownership lead to the other goals.

Gain a clear sense of the scientific process. Students are expected to learn that science is not merely about learning facts. Rather, science is an active process involving repeating cycles of making observations, defining hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, revising ideas, and developing better hypotheses.

See the project in broader contexts. Students are expected to consider the ecological, sociocultural, historical, political-economic, and policy contexts in which science takes place. They should specifically consider the broader ramifications of their projects and be able to address questions such as "Who benefits"? and "What good or harm might come from this scientific knowledge"?

Develop abilities to use quantitative information. Students should reach a level of increased understanding of why and how quantitative analyses play key roles in scientific investigations. For some students, quantitative skills development might mean increased ability to interpret tables and graphs, while others may develop advanced skills in analyzing their own and others' numerical or mathematical information.

Develop oral and written communication skills. Students should be able to

(a) identify and locate literature and other relevant source materials,
(b) critically evalate primary research articles and synthesize information,
(c) organize their observations and ideas into clear and coherent presentations, and
(d) through revision, sharpen their oral and written presentrations.

Most students who entered Hampshire in the fall of 2002 or later will complete the NS Division I requirement as an independent project within one of the first year tutorials or seminars. These classes will be focused on helping you identify a question of interest early in the semester so you may complete an independent project/paper within the context of the course.

Students who entered Hampshire before Fall Semester 2002 who have not yet completed an NS Division I project will need to complete an independent project with a professor of your choosing or complete the two course option as previously outlined.

Remember
BECAUSE WORK IN ONE COURSE MUST BE COMPLETE IN ORDER TO DETERMINE WHAT SKILLS YOU NEEED TO DEVELOP IN THE SECOND COURSE, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO USE TWO COURSES TAKEN IN THE SAME SEMESTER TO SATISFY THE TWO COURSE OPTION IN NATURAL SCIENCE.
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PLANNING YOUR NS DIVISION I

The criteria for satisfying the Division I requirement in Natural Science can be summarized in five points. Each of these is described in more detail in this document

1. Show engagement and ownership of scientific inquiry
2. Gain a clear sense of the scientific process
3. See your project in broader contexts
4. Develop abilities to use quantitative information
5. Develop oral and written communication skill

Natural Courses that are numbered NS 100 to NS 199 are designed to help you build the skills you'll need to satisfy those criteria. The official "first year tutorials" are designed to help the motivated first year student complete this process within the course.

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Class assignments are often designed to move you towards your Division I goals. Assignments through the semester from one class (Human Biology) illustrate this:

The following class assignments are designed to help you develop your final course paper. It is this paper which will demonstrate how far you've progressed towards achieving the NS Division I goals.

Library Skills Class and Library Assignment: you will learn to use computer search facilities to find the kinds of primary scientific articles you'll use in your final paper.
Article Summaries: You may use the summaries you wrote and revised of primary papers in your final paper. Related reading in your packet explains how to write critical analyses of these articles, as you'll need to do for your final paper.
Classes on statistics and related exercises and reading. These will help you learn to read the graphs and charts in primary articles you write about in your paper.
Paper proposal: This assignment gives you a start on writing your actual paper.
Preliminary bibliography. Refine your ability to find appropriate primary articles and supporting material.
Write about graphs and tables. Refine and demonstrate your ability to use quantitative information.
Rough draft of your final paper and title and abstract of your final presentation before Thanksgiving break. this provides time for us to give you feedback about how to revise it to turn in at the end of the semester.
Final symposium. Often this helps focus your ideas about what you need to do next on your paper.
Final paper. This paper should demonstrate the skills you learned (listed above) for Division I in Natural Science.

ShiftingPixel Human Tongue
http://shiftingpixel.com/2007/01/25/tongue/