Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain why an animal’s diet should be balanced and meet the needs of the bodyDefine the primary components of foodDescribe the essential nutrients required for cellular function that cannot be synthesized by the animal bodyExplain how energy is produced through diet and digestionDescribe how excess carbohydrates and energy are stored in the body

Student groups compete to design a process that removes the most iron from fortified cereal. Students experiment with different materials using what they know about iron, magnets and forces to design the best process for removing iron from the cereal samples.

In this lesson, students will learn that minerals are a necessary part of our diet. They will learn that different minerals have different functions in the body. More specifically, they will discover that iron is necessary to carry oxygen around the body. In the associated activity, students will design a process that removes the most iron from the cereal.

Rocks cover the earth's surface, including what is below or near human-made structures. With rocks everywhere, breaking rocks can be hazardous and potentially disastrous to people. Students are introduced to three types of material stress related to rocks: compressional, torsional and shear. They learn about rock types (sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic), and about the occurrence of stresses and weathering in nature, including physical, chemical and biological weathering.

The emphasis of this course is to use Trace Element Geochemistry to understand the origin and evolution of igneous rocks. The approach is to discuss the parameters that control partitioning of trace elements between phases and to develop models for the partitioning of trace elements between phases in igneous systems, especially between minerals and melt. Subsequently, published papers that are examples of utilizing Trace Element Geochemistry are read and discussed.