The course map.
Eight units — four per semester — the labs that anchor them, and the two-day rhythm that runs every week of the year. This is the planner’s view — the whole course on one page.
Two days a week, and the work between them.
Every unit runs on the same rhythm: Concept Day → [student works at home] → Experiment Day → [student synthesizes at home] → next Concept Day. One day forces a choice between depth and breadth; two days allow both. More than two crowds out the at-home work where integration actually happens.
Concept Day
- Arrival & warm-up — reconnect with the prior session
- Pre-lecture discussion — surface what the at-home reading raised
- Direct instruction — micro-lectures, worked problems, demonstrations
- Problem set / model work — apply the concept, solo or in pairs
- Misconception sweep & wrap-up — correct common errors, preview the lab
Guide's role: Socratic and diagnostic. Student's role: active participation; pre-reading required.
Experiment Day
- Pre-lab briefing — the question, the procedure, the safety
- Safety check — goggles, gloves, careful handling of sharps & preserved specimens; explicit, every time
- Setup — microscopes, specimen trays, dissection kits, partner assignment
- Execution — the lab itself; the guide circulates and coaches
- Debrief & lab notebook — completed before the student leaves
- Cleanup & specimen care — to standard; respectful; non-negotiable
Guide's role: safety officer first, teacher second. Student's role: the lab notebook is THE artifact — predictions before results.
From what an animal is to behavior and ecology.
The sequence is deliberate: each unit assumes the one before it. Click any unit to open its mastery rubric — the standard a student demonstrates against to advance.
| Unit | Big ideas | Anchor lab(s) | Integrates with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 · What Is an Animal? | What makes an animal an animal, levels of organization, symmetry & body plans, the classification hierarchy & dichotomous keys | Keying out specimens — sort animal vs non-animal traits with a dichotomous key | Linnaeus & the naming of life (history, reading); the logic of classification; tallying & organizing trait data |
| 02 · Sponges, Cnidarians & Worms | Simple invertebrate body plans, radial vs bilateral symmetry, tissue-level organization, the first nervous systems | Hydra & planaria observation; sponge & cnidarian specimen survey | Early microscopy & the discovery of simple animals (history); comparative anatomy; measuring regeneration |
| 03 · Mollusks & Arthropods | The mollusc body plan, the arthropod success story, exoskeletons & molting, segmentation & jointed limbs | Crayfish or grasshopper dissection & identification (dichotomous key) | Insects in agriculture & disease (history, economics); structure–function reasoning; counting & comparing morphology |
| 04 · Echinoderms & the Chordate Transition | The echinoderm water-vascular system, deuterostome development, the four chordate hallmarks, invertebrate chordates | Sea-star & lancelet observation; comparing invertebrate & chordate features | The search for our animal ancestry (history, reading); embryology; charting shared traits |
| 05 · Fish & Amphibians | The first vertebrates, jawless to cartilaginous to bony fish, gills & buoyancy, the move onto land & metamorphosis | Fish (perch) anatomy & adaptation; frog external & internal study | Fossil fish & the fish-to-tetrapod story (history); physics of buoyancy; measuring & comparing anatomy |
| 06 · Reptiles & Birds | The amniotic egg, ectothermy vs endothermy, reptile adaptations for land, birds as living dinosaurs & the demands of flight | Comparative skeleton & feather study; egg & adaptation analysis | The discovery of dinosaurs & Archaeopteryx (history, writing); physiology; flight & measurement data |
| 07 · Mammals | Mammalian hallmarks (hair, mammary glands, specialized teeth), the major mammal groups, adaptive radiation, whales & bats as mammals | Mammal skull & dentition study; adaptation analysis | Where humans fit among the mammals (history, ethics, writing); physiology; comparing skeletal measurements |
| 08 · Animal Behavior & Ecology | Innate vs learned behavior, ethograms, populations & food webs, animals in their ecosystems & conservation | Ethogram field study — observe & record animal behavior | Darwin & the voyage of the Beagle — the animal diversity that planted the idea (history, ethics, writing); ecology; quantifying behavior & population data |
Every unit carries the core spokes — History, Reading, and Writing — anchored to the story in the integration guide. The column above names each unit’s distinctive spokes; geography and soft social studies run where they fit, and students pick from elective spokes (data, ethics, economics, technology, art). An applied-math lane runs through every unit too — math used in service of the science, never as a separate program.
Where mastery gets proven in person.
Three times across the year, the student steps up to a demonstration that cannot be faked, outsourced, or generated. These are the AI-proof core of the course — understanding, shown in real time, against a rubric, in front of a guide.
Specimen-and-adaptation defense
Identify an animal's structures and adaptations, and defend how each fits its way of life and its place in classification, out loud, under questions.
Timed classification challenge
Key out and classify unfamiliar animals from observable traits, using a dichotomous key — under time pressure.
Oral lab-notebook defense
Walk a guide through your own notebook: the question, the method, the data, the anomalies, the interpretation.