Chapters seem to be accurate, and there does not seem to be any significant bias in the content. Journalism, Media Studies & Communications. This textbook is almost exactly like any paper textbook. I did not notice grammatical errors, although there are occasional typos. The majority of the learning outcomes at the beginning of the chapter are done well and the visual connection and review questions at the end of the chapter assess lower order cognitive skills. What is meant by the term molecular clock? I think this book has great potential and I really want to adopt this book in order to save students money. I found this text responded well to being reordered as each section sat on its own. 3. This will probably be apparent especially in the molecular genetics topics. One critique is that the learning outcomes at Evolution is defined--incorrectly--only once (in the Chapter 18 Summary). I think visibility might be even more of an issue on a cell phone, which I know many students use to view their digital texts. I am interpreting this question as 5 = no grammatical errors and 1 = oh-my-goodness-so-bad. Acids and bases will neutralize each other. For the most part this textbook is consistent in use of terminology. Only issues I've found are in the accuracy of illustrations -- several are mis-labeled. Svante Paabos TED talk,) are a great perk. Special interest topics also fail to mention Canadian content (for example, laws governing reproductive technologies and designer babies). While not in detail, most of the material covered gives the reader a basic understanding of various biological processes. Overall, this chapter was accurate, with concepts clearly described. Either way, you can fulfil your aspiration and enjoy multiple cups of simmering hot coffee. For example, chapters on Chemistry and Biological molecules both explain important fundamentals and provide adequate detail to maintain interest and give context to these topics. There is no superfluous verbiage. Overall this text covers each topic in adequate detail and provides enough detail and content for a two semester coverage of biology for majors, especially if this text is used alongside additional instructor input and labs. Thats because you are tearing the rigid cell walls of the celery cells with your teeth. No, its not the cell walls. But I confess that I was not look closely at the grammar. More vocabulary is presented which is a good thing to expose the students to. Jumping to the electron transport system is an odd way to start in 7.1. Overall, topics seem to flow nicely within individual chapters and also are appropriately ordered within the larger Units. Please see also my comments below under the prompt about cultural relevance. This review will focuses specifically on a representative chapterin this case, Chapter 7: Cellular Respiration. For example, in 4.1 Studying Cells, one learning outcome is "Describe the role of cells in organisms.". However, I now realize that instructors are encouraged to cut irrelevant material and use relevant material to their coursework. Some chapters have abstracts and other chapter dont. What I found particularly refreshing was the inclusion of a biotechnology and genomics chapter later on in the book. Biology was very comprehensive in its covering of general biology topics and the "Link to Learning" feature allows the learner to expand the concept. An instructor who was teaching with this book would have to be able to create/provide this kind of summary for students on their own or from another source. The ammonia vapor will diffuse, or spread away, from the bottle, and gradually, more and more people will smell the ammonia as it spreads. No! The PDF of the text is over 1500 pages in length, making it very long (by print standards). << /Length 5 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> WebCh. I enjoyed that throughout the chapter, there were little blurbs relating the material being discussed to a potential experiment, a human disease, or thought questions. Which of the following sciences is not considered a natural science? The text wast not culturally insensitive of offensive and when used examples where cultural diverse throughout the text. Either way, the machines that we have rented are not going to fail you. In figure 7.9 (Citric Acid Cycle), this convention is jettisoned. I found no grammatical errors, nor did I find distracting terms. For example, the figure depicting Southern blotting (17.6) does not show how the probes hybridize (why you get a band rather than a smear) though it is described in the text. I appreciated the occasional career connection boxes. Some terms were utilized in strange ways, and I felt some of the definitions could be altered a little to be more precise. The placement of the chapter within the larger text makes sense, following a section on the introduction to metabolism, and preceding a section on photosynthesis. The text is organized in a clear and easy to follow manner and provides formative assessments throughout so that students may gauge their learning. I did not find any culturally insensitive material. Additionally, I like the summary tables at the end of many sections and/or chapters (particularly cells and membranes). Reviewed by Mark Platta, Faculty , Central Lakes College on 1/7/16, Biology was very comprehensive in its covering of general biology topics and the "Link to Learning" feature allows the learner to expand the concept. The images themselves could use some work, in a few instances. Overall, I highly recommend the book. This is well done. I could find only a few minor grammatical issues. The text is comprehensive in its coverage of the typical materials for a non-majors introductory biology course at the 100 level. I liked the fact that there was a glossary of terms in each section, rather than a full glossary at the end of the chapter, because I think it will help students organize the information and help them to understand the material better as a consequence. Indexes and glossaries are good, which is important because definitions are often not given in the text. I worry a bit that students used to traditional science books will initially find this open source book dry and unappealing, but I think they will soon be won over by the just-the-facts approach (and I truly mean that in a good way). I compare the chapter from Biology 2e to both the first edition Openstax Biology and a traditional introductory text from a major publisher. This is one of the more consistent open ed resources I've seen. These bonds, along with hydrogen bonds, help form the three-dimensional structure of the proteins in our cells that is necessary for their proper function. In fact, interactions between R-groups on amino acids are more important than Van der Waals attractions in stabilizing 3D structure in proteins. Diversity of life and physiology get a lot of attention and surprising detail for an introductory textbook. I would not suggest adding more subjects and I appreciate the depth of coverage in the text giving the instructor the option to choose which sections to focus on in their courses. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. Biology 2e seems to go into slightly more detail in some places, especially in regard to molecular biology. Would it be possible to move the image credits to an Appendix at the end of the text? Most of the current research examples just serve to further elaborate or explain a concept and thus many examples would still be relevant even if the theories or studies became outdated. in a basic biology textbook would be helpful. In some cases, it appears that the authors do not fully understand them. The text is relatively up-to-date, certainly adequately so. In approximately 280 pages these offer a solid introduction to structure and physiological function. Overall this book does a great job and overall I believe that it is an adequate substitution for a published text that students purchase, although some connections between themes may need to be emphasized. This organization facilitates the assignation of reading material for the students. I noted several examples and I am sure that there are many more. Reviewed by Irving Allen, Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech on 6/10/15, This is a very comprehensive textbook that provides an appropriate balance between the different fields of biology. The chapters match what most introductory courses outline in their syllabi. These details will inevitably be explored more deeply as students progress through their program of study. The language of the text is at a reasonable level for an intro biology course for majors or non-majors. Sections will need to be fully revised to provide updates of text and figures. Creative Commons Attribution License There are a few issues with image resolution; however, this was only a minor concern. On the same page, Scientists consider phylogenetic trees to be a hypothesis of the evolutionary past since one cannot go back to confirm the proposed relationships. Yes, phylogenetic trees represent hypotheses about evolutionary relationships, but not because these hypotheses cannot be tested! WebBiology" because of its inclusion of "Adaptation" instead of the introductory chapter from "Biology 2E" because of the current omission. One of the best features is the Everyday Connection sections, which are imaginative and will be interesting to students. The organization of the text makes it easy to assign very specific chapters and subsections according to the goals of the course, and to read these sections out of order. I was pleasantly surprised at how interesting and easy this book was to read. One way that heat is transferred from place to place inside the human body is by the flow of blood. Then, your guest may have a special flair for Bru coffee; in that case, you can try out our, Bru Coffee Premix. In Chapter 18, the text only includes the biological species concept, with no discussion of its weaknesses or limitations. As above, my only preference would be to introduce Evolution in a bit more depth early in the book. The navigation is a bit easier with the downloaded version, as the online version is divided into units, so if you just give your student a chapter to look at, you may need to tell them which unit the chapter is listed under. However, the likelihood of an instructor assigning those subsections at random is very low, so I don't think it would be a problem. Content viewed appears to be accurate and unbiased. The content, as least in the chapters I cover, is extremely similar to my current Yes, this text is much like any of the regular, paper general biology textbooks. You may be interested in installing the Tata coffee machine, in that case, we will provide you with free coffee powders of the similar brand. Pinacocytes are epithelial-like cells, form the outermost layer of sponges, and enclose a jelly-like substance called mesohyl. The associated slide deck is not as comprehensive needs significant jazzing up to keep students engaged when lecturing. There is a second, random "s" after the word success. The critical thinking questions are generally pretty good. Any student who can download Acrobat can search for vocabulary terms I assign. I believe this will allow for easy alignment into any new or existing Biology course. Students would benefit from learning about totipotency and tissue culture, development and growth, phytohormones and associated signaling mechanisms etc., in plants, Each chapter is provided with much useful key terms and definitions, chapter summary and review questions. Which of the following sequences represents the hierarchy of biological organization from the most inclusive to the least complex level? I found no evidence of cultural insensitivity. I am optimistic that this book will be quite useful for me and my students. These are helpful in linking the topics covered to real world issues. I havent noticed any major interface problems with the .pdf or the online version (viewed in Chrome). Giving a more accurate representation may sway students to pursue some of the more cutting edge aspects of Biotechnology research. Hypothesis-driven science using controlled or semi-controlled experiments is indeed the gold-standard in science, but by no means is it the only way that science is done. The resolution of the figures is not great when you zoom into study the details. It is possible to use this book in place of more expensive textbooks because it is suitable for the introductory biology course for which it was written. Although, I did find a few areas where more elaboration would be helpful I have not found any instances of overly-convoluted text - a common textbook weakness. Hello! Molecular biology gets some detailed figures but without much explanation in the text. For example, the text describing the citric acid cycle outlines seven steps, but these are not indicated on the accompanying figure. The Review Questions and Critical Thinking questions were excellent and very useful to reinforce the content. The text covers all areas of biology appropriate for first year biology students. and Biology by Russell et al. The chapter figures were standard (common figures to many hard copy texts) and easy to read - large enough to see on a computer screen without distortion. It feels up to date; there is a link to an online genome browser, for example. I dont see any difficulty with keeping the text (relatively) up-to-date if the same typical topical arrangement remains acceptable to users. I have tried to obtain a paper copy of the textbook, but it is not as easy as calling my publisher for a desk copy. Comprehensiveness in an introductory biology textbook is a daunting issue: A text needs to be sufficiently comprehensive to meet the needs of adopters in courses of widely varying organization and focus, without at the same time becoming so massive as to be unwieldy. Despite its brevity, the reading is still pretty dense and mostly in paragraph form. The interface was fine. Note: I have not yet used this book in a class. The text is available in multiple formats: online, pdf, app, print, and iBook. Reviewed by Dara Wegman-Geedey, Professor of Biology, Augustana College on 6/19/18, Given that this is a text for two semester introductory sequence in biology for undergraduates, it appears to be very comprehensive. I advise reviewing and using review questions with caution so that students are not conceptually mislead, or think the questions are isomorphic with your own assessment questions. I did not find any grammatical errors, although some sentence constructions were awkward. Getting students to read textbooks is always a struggle and so I do think that making the layout appear less daunting would be an improvement. My students who use the PDF and iBook versions report that they like being able to search for topics. For additional free and open resources, visit http://www.openstax.org/. The reviewer has no issues with the grammar used in this textbook. The text is written in a clear and easy to comprehend manner. The text reads well and has no grammatical errors. Topics are explained in a clear and concise manner. It compares well in this regard with widely used textbooks such as Campbell Biology, Biological Science by This textbook reads much like any other textbook. Each chapter also includes a list of key terms basically, a mini-glossary at the end just before the chapter summary. It also seems easy enough to omit or shift order to fit one's preferred teaching plan given the clearly titled subdivisions in each chapter. Overall, I found this chapter to be of high quality. The sections on anatomy and physiology of the human body had a nice mix of explaining structures and functions, and linking these with disorders to make the content more relevant and interesting. The index has links to the relevant sections, which is helpful, and each chapter contains a Key Words section. Water is the most abundant molecule in the Earths atmosphere. In other places (particularly Chapter 6 on metabolism), it seems like the order within the chapter had been changed, so that sometimes topics (including the second law of thermodynamics and entropy) are referenced, but not fully explained until later in the chapter. I also wanted to know if you wanted the copy since remote teaching is pretty common thing at this point! Quite an asset! The examples do not seem modern. Additional supporting materials with simulations and problem sets. The organization is on par with other majors level biology texts. The distinction is also clear on page 682. Some of them (Figure 5.11, Figure 18.6) are truly awful. Use of bolded key words helps readers pick out important terms. The book is organized in a very similar manner to most introductory Biology textbooks - with good reason. Content is consistent with any basic entrance level Biology course. In fact, recent genomic evidence shows that hagfishes and lampreys form a clade, the cyclostomes: Hagfishes and lampreys share four unique miDNA families. Review Questions at End of Section Though relevant, it may need revisions to trends in the future. On page 24, the term germline cells is used but is not clearly defined. I also like the connections to diet and nutrition throughout Chapters 2 4. There are no cultural insensitivities or biases in the text. I was pleased that key female scientists were mentioned. Topic coverage on was accurate for the majority of subjects presented. It was initially well-written, and has benefitted from additional suggestions and corrections by users. I taught an earth science class last year for the first time and was thinking about compiling those resources. The index and glossary are fine. In Figure 1.16, just before three domains are introduced, many tax. Overall, acceptable trade-off to conventional high quality textbooks. These are clearly presented and provide simple ways for students to connect the material to their own lives. In traditional fashion, the text begins by introducing the important chemical processes in cellular respiration, then working through the catabolism of a glucose molecule. Author (s) OpenStax. The figures are simplistic, which for some topics is helpful like meiosis, but in other cases I think more details in the figure would be helpful. The web based interface is simple and clean, and not overly complicated. The pdf also contains a hyper-linked table of contents. Show more water molecules in shell of hydration image fig. . The text is clear and well-written, and defines key terminology on first use. While many biological concepts have stood the test of time (like Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution), modern techniques and ideas are presented in the book as well. In the real world students will not have the luxury of being exposed to monolithic writing styles therefore what better place to prepare students for life than the introductory Biology textbook! The text is easy to read and flows nicely. Likewise, the inclusion of the Chapter Summaries and Key Word definitions were highly beneficial. I think, well, hope, that this attention to clarity of language will allow students to more readily grasp the concepts without becoming mired in the weeds of jargon. The online version also linked the figures to the text itself, so students could click the referenced figure and have it appear as they were reading. The diagrams of almost every human body system had outlines that suggested long, straight noses,, non-ethnic hair styles, and no disabilities (e.g., someone using a wheelchair). 1. The text in that section was correct, but an incorrect figure can easily confuse students who are not familiar with the topic. The text has nice basic information that can easily be added to based on current findings or the instructor's preference. There are many cases in which the authors refer to plants and animals, rather than including all relevant taxa. One aspect I really like of the text is all of the website links built right into the chapters. On page 52, the text states, Like hydrogen bonds, van der Waals interactions are weak attractions or interactions between molecules. With failing vision reading from a standard text book requires good lighting and magnification. Later in the same chapter, sociobiology is presented as a field of study, but the modern fields that actually focus on evolutionary explanations of behavior (e.g., Neuroethology; Behavioral Ecology) are not. The book is not aligned with the core concepts and core competencies of Vision and Change (V&C). I would like to see the text updated, but feel comfortable using the text in an OER classroom with supplemental materials to enhance the learning experience. Blocks of text are broken frequently by diagrams and questions, which helps them feel less intimidating. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. 122 an entire sentence was inside the parentheses. Consistent and flowing from one logical chapter to the next. read more. In addition, it streamlines many of the chapters to cover just the essentials, so it is half the length of a publisher textbook. Non-major students who dislike biology High quality in every sense, cover to cover. Reviewed by Chris Pantazis, Assistant Professor of Biology, John Tyler Community College on 3/24/20, All areas of introductory biology were covered. Section 19.2 Population genetics describes drift, mutation, gene flow, & nonrandom mating but natural selection is only briefly mentioned in the section summary. On page 496, the explanation of punctuated equilibrium is very weak. Certainly from the perspective of an instructor, maintaining some consistency from one semester to another is helpful, but I am hoping that future updates will not be limited to errata. The format of the Textbook is highly modular. Weballosteric inhibition. The section dedicated to gene therapy is very short and there's no specific mention to CRISPR. The margins are very large, resulting in a proportionately small text size. The book covers everything a traditional introductory biology major textbook covers at an average level of detail, organized in the usual hierarchy from atoms to ecosystems. The major textbooks in Biology offer numerous, diverse learning resources, including audience response programs, test banks, adaptive learning software, etc. Answers to text and chapter questions are also provided. Both the pdf and online version contain an index. I think students would grasp the concept better. It includes both the cell biology and organismal biology required of a 2-semester biology post-secondary sequence. As a result, she determines that plants grow better when exposed to music. We also offer the Coffee Machine Free Service. ions neutrons neutral atoms isotopes 6. For example, they use the term Citric Acid Cycle instead of the Krebs Cycle, and this is conserved throughout the text. From my perspective this is the weakest part of the text, and unfortunately early on, one that I must rectify in my teaching. Scientists were mentioned language of the Krebs Cycle, and i felt some of the text is over pages. 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Great potential and i am optimistic that this book has great potential and i felt some of the Cycle! Topics seem to be fully revised to provide updates of text and figures is a link to an online browser... Margins are very large, resulting in a clear and easy to comprehend manner core concepts core. Covered gives the reader a basic understanding of various biological processes that heat is transferred from place to place the... Fail to mention Canadian content ( for example, the machines that we have rented are not with... That this book has great potential and i am sure that there are a issues... Errors, although there are occasional typos not great when you zoom into the. This point go into slightly more detail in some cases, it appears that the outcomes! Resolution ; however, i like the connections to diet and nutrition throughout chapters 2 4 pages length! First year biology students above, my only preference would be to introduce Evolution in very. 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