A New Core Curriculum at Morehouse College Lawrence Blumer (Biology), Valerie Haftel (Biology) and Lance Shipman (Chemis

1. A New Core Curriculum at Morehouse College Lawrence Blumer (Biology), Valerie Haftel (Biology) and Lance Shipman (Chemistry) Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA 30314 Existing Non-Science Curriculum Currently, and for more than 15 years, non-science majors at Morehouse College have been required to complete two courses taught only to non-science students: Biological Sciences for non-majors and Physical Sciences for non-majors. These courses are taught by the Departments of Biology and Physics respectively and each consists of a traditional format 3-hour lecture and 2-hour laboratory. The current arrangement suffers from compartmentalization of subjects, exclusion of other science disciplines in the teaching non-science students, and science subjects devoid of a larger societal context. The laboratory meetings in these courses are too short for anything but cookbook experiments or demonstrations that require little thinking and fail to reflect the nature of the scientific process. The traditional methods of teaching in the present courses place emphasis on teaching, rather than learning, and students generally view these courses as burdens to overcome, rather than opportunities to broaden horizons. Core Curriculum Revision During the past two and one-half years, a core curriculum taskforce, consisting of faculty representatives from every academic department, has address the question: What should a Morehouse Man know and be able to do? We addressed this question with a clean slate approach and developed a comprehensive list of goals, student learning outcomes, and indicators of each learning outcome. We did not begin to discuss courses and curriculum until this past summer when curriculum design teams were formed. Our design team addressed the following student learning objective: “Understand the fundamental principles and processes of the natural world” Four outcome indicators were specified by the core curriculum taskforce for this learning outcome: 1. Understand the method and ethics of scientific research - have knowledge of history and philosophy of science 2. Understand biological evolution 3. Understand fundamental physical laws and principles 4. Understand the inter-relatedness of science, technology, mathematics and systems thinking Proposed Core Science Curriculum We have proposed a one-semester course, “Science and Society”, which will be required of all Morehouse students, both science majors and non-majors. This course will consist of both lecture and laboratory components and will be aimed at Freshman and Sophomore level students. The entire course will be 4 semester hours. We proposed the following modules for the “Science and Society” course. Outcome Indicator AreaSubject Evolution Social Biology, Behavior and Evolution Evolution, Interrelatedness Medicine and Health Methods, Ethics, History Invention, Technology, Social Change Physical Laws Materials and Environment Physical Laws Nanotechnology, Bioengineering and Artificial Intelligence Physical Laws, Interrelatedness Science and Terrorism Interrelatedness Energy, Climate and Pollution Interrelatedness Population Dynamics and Limitations The Science and Society course will be taught in a broadly interdisciplinary manner. Two faculty from different departments will team teach the course in each semester. Modules were chosen to permit integration between science disciplines and to facilitate a case-based approach to learning and teaching. The laboratory component of the course will consist of one 4-hour meeting each week which will emphasize the experimental process, the context of scientific discovery, and the consequences of scientific advances.