Welcome from the Undergraduate Coordinator

-Ann Dieffenbacher-Krall, Associate Director of the School of Biology and Ecology

Click here to take a virtual tour of SBE.

Student Learning Outcomes

The School of Biology and Ecology curricula for Biology, Botany, and Zoology  majors, both BA and BS, emphasize the broad knowledge base and skills to analyze information across disciplines as is required for modern biology, with knowledge of new approaches and new technology. Each and every student, whether they focus on plants, animals, ecology, human health, insects, or other areas, leaves the University of Maine as a well rounded biologist able to enter a broad array of career fields.

Student learning outcomes are aligned with those recommended by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Foundation with the input of more than 500 biology faculty, and articulated in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (www.visionandchange.org).

Key concepts are emphasized throughout the curriculum:

• Evolution
• Pathways and transformations of energy and matter
• Information flow, exchange, and storage
• Structure and function
• Systems

Students gain key competencies:

• Ability to apply the process of science
• Ability to use quantitative reasoning
• Ability to use modeling and simulation
• Ability to tap into the interdisciplinary nature of science
• Ability to communicate and collaborate with other disciplines
• Ability to understand the relationship between science and society