QUANTITATIVE CURRICULUM FOR LIFE SCIENCE STUDENTS

Supported by the National Science Foundation's Undergraduate Course and Curriculum Program through Grant #USE-9150354 to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Despite the fact that quantitative methods and theoretical developments have become central to modern biology, the quantitative training of undergraduate life science students is generally considerably weaker than that of students in the physical sciences. A well-supported reform movement to introduce new methods for quantitative training of undergraduates, particularly in the calculus, has recently begun to produce many new educational models. I have carried out a variety of activities as part of an NSF-supported project to produce a flexible curriculum of quantitative courses for undergraduate life science students, able to be integrated with the biological courses these students take and utilizing examples from recent biological research. Two Workshops have been organized, the first of which provided guidelines for key concepts and content for entry-level and upper-division quantitative courses, and the second one focusing on methods to incorporate more quantitative concepts directly within life science courses.