Biological Science, Global Edition

Book Preface

From the very first edition, Biological Science’s unique emphasis on the process of scientific discovery and guiding students to think like biologists has placed this book at the forefront of change in the way we teach biology. The Sixth Edition embraces this legacy and continues to exemplify the principles outlined in the recent Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education report. As in previous editions, the cuttingedge biology in the Sixth Edition is pitched at the right level for introductory students, and is as accurate and as exciting as ever for instructors and students alike. New findings from education research continue to inform and inspire the coauthor team’s thinking about Biological Science—we know more today than ever before about how students learn. These findings demand that we constantly look for new ways to increase student engagement in the learning process. Innovative features new to this edition offer students even more opportunities to actively apply concepts in new situations; evaluate experimental design, hypotheses, and data; synthesize results; and make and interpret models. For instructors, additional resources are provided to help align course activities and learning goals with their assessment strategies.

Core Values

In the Sixth Edition, the coauthor team has strived to extend the vision and maintain the core values of Biological Science—to provide a book and online resources for instructors who embrace the challenge of boosting students to higher levels of learning, and to provide a book that helps students each step of the way in learning to think like scientists, regardless of their starting point in theprocess. Dedicated instructors have high expectations of their students. The Sixth Edition provides tools to help students build their cognitive mastery in both biology content and transferrable skills—to learn at the level called for by the National Academy of Sciences, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the American Association of Medical Academies, and the National Science Foundation. Reports such as Biology 2010, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, and Vision and Change all place a premium on fundamental concepts and skills as well as connecting core ideas across all levels of biology.

What’s New in This Edition

The Sixth Edition contains many new or expanded features, all of them designed to provide students with initial instruction in content and skills, followed by opportunities for lots of practice in applying knowledge and skills to new contexts. The ultimate goal is for students to learn to construct their own knowledge and think like biologists.
• Relocated and Expanded BioSkills Section Instructors recognize that biology students need to develop foundational science skills in addition to content knowledge. Since the Third Edition, Biological Science has provided a unique, robust set of materials and activities in an appendix to guide students who need extra help with the skills emphasized in the book. In the Sixth Edition, the BioSkills materials have been placed between Chapters 1 and 2 to emphasize their importance as a resource for success in doing biology, and to make it easier for students to access them throughout the course. The BioSkills are grouped within five broad categories depicted in a new opening road map: Quantifying Biology, Using Common Lab Tools, Visualizing Biology, Reading Biology, and Monitoring Your Own Learning. Four new BioSkills have been added: Using Spectrophotometry, Using Molecular Biology Tools and Techniques, Reading and Making Visual Models, and Recognizing and Correcting Misconceptions. Existing BioSkills have been updated to support new features in the Sixth Edition. For example, the explanation of statistical tests has been expanded, and P values are introduced to provide students with essential quantitative skills for interpreting data in the end-of chapter case studies. BioSkills include practice questions, are cross-referenced throughout the text, and can be assigned online in MasteringBiology®.
• Making Models Boxes Reports like Vision and Change cite the importance of developing model-based reasoning skills. To help attain this goal, Making Models boxes have been added throughout the book to explicitly teach students how to use visual models to learn and do biology. Each Making Models box has three components: instruction in interpreting or creating a specific type of model, an example of that type of model, and an application question so that students can immediately practice their skills. In addition to the guidance in the text, online video versions are accessible via QR code so students can watch and interact with a dynamic presentation of modeling. Lastly, the video version is also included in an assignable MasteringBiology activity that tests students with higher-level questions.
• Put It All Together Case Studies The end-of-chapter question sets for every chapter now include a case study. Case studies briefly introduce contemporary biology research in action, followed by questions that ask students to apply the chapter’s content and skills to the research topic. Instructor resources include clicker questions to give instructors the opportunity to use the case studies as discussion prompts in the classroom. A constant hallmark of this text is its emphasis on experimental evidence—on teaching how we know what we know. The case studies expand this emphasis, requiring students to evaluate real data and to see how ongoing scientific research is related to core biological ideas.