Module 1
Purpose: to illustrates the similarities and differences between living and human-engineered systems and introduces the students to the instructional methods used during the remainder of the course.
Instructional Approach:
The students are provided with examples of both living and human-engineered systems likely to be familiar to them. They are then asked to group into teams and to discuss and report out the similarities and differences they have identified between the comparisons in the list.
Once the students have had a chance to consider the similarites and differences
between these pairs, they are asked to share with the rest of the class
their ideas. Their comments are recorded on the board, and, once complete,
the instructor then asks the class as a whole to identify common characteristics
of living and human-engineered systems. This open-ended discussion provides
the students with the opportunity to begin to construct knowledge about
how engineering and biology share common principles, and where the commonalities
beging to break down, leading to opportunities for further study and application.
To complete the exercise, the instructor helps the students to categorize the characteristics of living systems along the lines of those that will be used for the rest of the course.
Resources:
This project
was funded by a grant from the NSF Action Agenda Program.
This site archives the original version of the course. For more information on
how the course is taught today, please visit: http://www.biologyforengineers.org
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