UMPI Class Review Master Thread

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Name: Bio105 Biology for Everyday Life
Subject: Biology
Semester/Term: Summer Session 2 (July-August 2023)
Instructor: Krista Delahunty
Long or Short?: Long 
Number of Outcomes: 7 (6 real, 1 “are you ready?”)  
Adaptive Outcomes?: No
Number of Milestone Activities: 5 (w/ multiple parts)
Type of Milestone Activities: Something else, lab activities
Type of Final Assessment: PowerPoint
Notes & Overall Thoughts: 

TLDR; do not take this class at UMPI 
The school ships you all the supplies you need for non-virtual labs.



Milestone 1: Scientific Method

• Answer 7 questions
  
• Design a lab experiment based on solubility (For example, sugar in water or baking soda in water)
  
• Create a table based on your lab assignment
  
• Create a chart based on your lab 
  
• Include a photo of your lab 
  

Milestone 2: Explore Local Biomes and Owl Pellet Dissection

• Create a table identifying 10 species (you have to go outside away from your home to do this activity. You will have to photograph and label each species under four-five categories, resulting in roughly 40-50 descriptions in this assignment. The professor will not accept photos from your backyard or recent vacation. These are the words used in the lab instructions.)
  
• Owl pellet (you will have to dissect an owl pellet. I won’t lie, I was grossed out. I am not afraid of animals or bugs but picking the bones apart from a dead rat clumped together with leftover indigestible matter and fur almost made me gag.)
  

Milestone 3: Microbiology Lab

• Microbial friends (Watch a click-through video. Answer 13 prompted/comprehension questions)
  
• Bacteria sampling (This is a virtual click-through lab. Answer 20 questions and submit a screenshot.)
  
• Gram stain technique (This is a virtual click-through lab. Answer 17 questions and submit a screenshot.)
  
• Using a microscope (This is a virtual click-through lab. Answer 17 questions and submit a screenshot.)
  

Milestone 4: Genetics Lab

• Isolation of DNA (This is a virtual click-through lab. Submit screenshot.)
  
• Karyotype Analysis (This is a virtual lab activity. Submit screenshot.)
  
• Monster breeding (You will create two tables, like a Punnett Square to breed a ‘monster’ and then type a report. There are two sections to this activity.
  
• Pigeonetics (You will play a game breeding pigeons and then you will have to write a summary of what technique you used to breed your pigeon. Submit screenshots. Answer 3 review questions.)
  

Milestone 5: Lactase Enzyme Lab

• Lactase enzyme lab (You will watch a documentary and then conduct a detailed experiment testing lactose intolerance in multiple patients. The school ships you the materials for this lab. You will then create a lab report, create a graph and submit screenshots of your lab.)
  

Final Assessment

• PowerPoint of all the labs and other work you created in the course. You may also have to answer some additional questions using your ppt slides.
  

Professor Delahunty is a tough grader (I'm not kidding in the least bit) and will not guide you through the assignments. She will reject your milestone assignment on the most miniscule detail, so be prepared to edit your assignments based on feedback given or be on your P’s and Q’s. Some of the quiz answers are wrong, so you will need to either fail the quiz or just mark the answer to get a passing grade. I completed 5 courses at UMPI in the same amount of time it has taken to get approval to submit my final assessment for Biology class with Delahunty— no I am not exaggerating. From start to finish, it took me 3 weeks to complete all of the lab assignments plus an extra week to correct a lab assignment, totaling 4 weeks.

Delahunty took an average of 48-72 hours to respond to milestones/other assignments. I could have completed this class in 8-12 days if I did not have to wait for my milestones to be approved. For example, I would submit an assignment on a Monday morning at 8:05am and Delahunty would respond on a Wednesday at 3:00pm. I would make the necessary edits and then resubmit my assignment that same Wednesday at 3:30pm. She would not respond or affirm to the same assignment for another 2-3 days later. The goal is to get my milestone affirmed. I did not send communications outside of that reason. 


I would not advise taking this class at UMPI. It has been nothing short of a nightmarish headache. I will say it again, avoid this class at all costs if you are able to. I attended a brick-and-mortar undergrad right after high school and I never had an instructor this difficult in Science or Math. I transferred in Biology with a lab (taken in undergrad) and Environmental Science (taken at Sophia) but UMPI required me to take another science. I am pursuing BLS, Management.

*edited to make the topic titles blue in color

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I forgot to add that when you dissect the owl pellet, the milestone activity requires you to arrange each bone that you find on a flat surface and label them with the anatomical names, not plain English. For example, the ribs, the pelvic bones and etc. The bones are extremely tiny and fragile. You will need a pair of tweezers or particular apparatus to extract the bones. I used a plastic fork. It took me about 3 hours to dissect the pellet (I did this on my outdoor patio), not including the written portion of the assignment. Delahunty includes in the instructions that if you do not find enough bones or the right bones, your assignment will not be satisfactory.