[Ayce]

I took this course in the 2010-2011 year.

I understand what you may be thinking. The course description states that this course is about life in the universe, astrobiology, alien life forms, etc. However, don't be fooled! For a majority of this course, you are learning about the many kingdoms on the phylogenetic tree, such as plants, viruses, protists, etc.

Unfortunately, this course is very dry. Classes consisted of Dr. Stone reading off of the slides and offering very little to no supplemental information. Although Dr. Stone is a very good professor, I felt that he did a very poor job in making the course interesting. For this reason, going to class was pointless.

There was 1 midterm for this course and it was based on all of the stuff Dr. Stone had covered up until reading week. We were allowed to bring a double sided cheat sheet to the test, so there was no point in regularly reviewing your notes throughout the semester. The midterm was extremely difficult because it tested on very specific and insignificant details.

There were also weekly tutorials were you had to form a group and create a presentation discussing what Dr. Stone had covered in the previous week of class. This presentations were extremely useless and a waste of time. However, they were easy marks, as most people did very well on them.

There was also an individual project where you had to design your own extremophille organism. Unfortunately, the guidelines for the project were extremely unclear, so many people ended up losing marks for not doing things they did not know were expected of them. However, these were also marked fairly.

Finally, after reading week, the next 6 weeks were taught by guest lectures. Unfortunately, 80% of the guest lecturers had either very uninteresting content or presented the content in a very boring manner. I felt that Dr. Stone could have done a better job getting more interesting guest lecturers.

Finally, the exam was also very difficult. It was just like the midterm, but longer.

Overall, I would not recommend this course. The only positive of this course was the fact there was very little workload. However, I took this course the first time it was offered, so it is possible that this course may improve in the 2011-2012 year. However, be warned. If Dr. Stone is still teaching this course, the tests will STILL BE VERY DIFFICULT. Dr. Stone is known for this difficult, application style tests.

Did you have Dr. Stone for Bio 1M03? If you did, would you say his course/teaching/test style is the same?

I had him for 1M03 and I really hated it too. I was hoping this would be more interesting but...

No, I didn't have Dr. Stone for Bio 1M03. However, his testing style is always the same from what I've heard. If you take this course, be prepared for the same style of questions you got from Dr. Stone in Bio 1M03 midterms.

Can anyone elaborate on what exactly is his testing style? Some insight would be much appreciated.

This is an update from winter of 2013

Structure: Two classes and one tutorial per week. Class was taught by Dr. Stone for the first half and the second half consisted of guest lectures.

Topics: Covered viruses, bacteria+archaea, protists, green plants, fungi, astrobiology (Dr. Pudritz), plantae (Dr. Dudley), arthropods (Dr. Gunderman), origin of humanity, origin of menopause. The beginning was a bit dry but the guest lectures made up for that. The material was interesting overall but slow at the beginning.

Evaluation: 1 test, 1 exam, 1 project, and tutorial participation. So the tutorial had group presentations every week and everyone else had to evaluate them. Presentations were on topics covered in class the previous week. So it was just basically a way to recap what was taught in lecture. Dr. Stone's testing style is quite unique in this course. He taught my Bio 1M03 class in 2011 and he was lighter in that class. In this course, his questions require application and that you listen to what he says in class. Everyone was allowed to bring a cheat sheet two sided for the test and exam. It does help but it is important to know what is going on. Depending solely on your cheat sheet won't help. If you got a cheat sheet from a friend, I do not recommend that. I think making your own cheat sheet is a learning process and is a way to help you remember and understand the concepts.

Dr. Stone is very fair and really wants his students to do well. He gave us a second chance on the final exam if you did not do well on the test by allowing you to replace your test mark with your exam mark if you do better on the exam. The condition was that you handed in everything on time and did the test on time.

The project was a large chunk of the mark and really required thinking outside of the box. We had to make an extremophile and define characteristics of being alive, extremophiles, and give our creation a taxonomic classification.

The workload is light and there is no textbook so no readings or quizzes throughout the term. Course is pretty interesting but do not take it as a bird coarse. If you think you might like the topics covered, then I recommend it.

Is the textbook necessary for this course?

There isn't a textbook.