Parkland expands course offerings

Last semester, Parkland began offering new classes for students interested in the field of science. Human Biology (BIO 105) is one example of those classes, as well as Environmental Biology (BIO 104) and Physics: How Things Work (PHY 120-001/129-001H), a hybrid class containing BIO 104 and PHY 120/129 in one.

Professor Rose Dalton teaches BIO 105, which focuses on the incorporation of human anatomy and physiology with a global perspective. Simply put, the class looks at a system of the body and applies that to a global level.

"The global perspective is something you don't typically get in a pure anatomy and physiology class," Dalton explained. "So what we will do is we will take, for example, a topic in human biology like your immune system, and we'll talk about how your immune system functions."

She also mentioned one of the topics the class studied last semester, the HIV virus - a virus that directly attacks the immune system, which is usually what finds and kills viruses themselves. Viruses reproduce by infecting the cells of a living organism; they cannot produce offspring on their own.

"(The virus) specifically infects upper T-cells, which are a part of your immune function," said Dalton, who then explained the remaining structure of the class. "We then talked about how wide spread this virus is. Then, we expanded on the HIV virus and started talking about pandemic situations in general and how likely is a pandemic situation. Then, we looked at examples of those pandemics occurring, HIV virus being one of those."

BIO 105 is a four credit-hour class that can be taken to fulfill a Physical/Life Sciences requirement for students pursuing Associates degrees in Applied Science, General Education, and certain certificates. Students pursuing Associates degrees in Arts, Science, Engineering Science and Fine Arts may take the course to fulfill a Life Sciences requirement, pending Illinois Articulation Initiative approval. This semester, the class was dropped due to low registration, but will continue being offered in the future.

BIO 104 and PHY 120/129, taught by Professors Curtis Shoaf and Heidi Leuszler, is a course that focuses on energy, sustainability and the environment. BIO 104 covers Environmental Biology, and PHY 120 explains quite literally how things work.

"By combining a Biology and Physics course, we can talk about the physics and biological aspect of our current energy sources and well as alternatives," Shoaf noted. He went on to explain that the class was nicknamed "the paperless classroom," due to the fact that Android based tablets were assigned to each student for use in the class. There were a few technical difficulties along the way, but overall, combining the courses was very successful.

Some of the topics that were discussed in class were current energy productions and alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and bio-mass. BIO 104 is worth four credits, PHY120 earns three and PHY 129 is a one credit lab. The classes were linked due to the fact that they meet the Physical and Life Science general education requirements. This semester, however, they are teaching the course using iPads instead of Android tablets.

These two brand new classes were very successful, both in the eyes of the students that took part in the class and the professors that taught them. Although it remains to be determined whether these classes are here to stay, one thing is certain - they made a large impact on both the students and the professors, and are well on the way to help shaping the future of higher education.