Intro Laboratory Module in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - EBIO 213

Most people wouldn't consider a lab course when looking at easy classes. However, Intro Laboratory Module in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO 213) is a very easy and laid back course. You have to attend a four hour lab every week, but most labs actually end in about two to three hours, so the course isn’t too time consuming. The only other assignment is a series of short answer questions due on Owl-Space the day after the labs.

The labs usually consist of going outside to test out hypotheses about various topics. The first lab is about observing squirrel behavior. Literally all you have to do is go outside and watch squirrels for a couple of hours. The second lab is about requires students to get dirty looking for isopods in the dirt. Other labs include counting organisms found in leaf litter, observing two fire ant colonies interact with one another, and taking a trip to Brazos Bend State Park to observe the local flora and fauna and to collect specimens for further analysis. All the labs are straightforward, and do not require too much effort. People without a background in science should still be able to understand all of it. The labs can be fun if you are interested in nature. Also, the professor is clearly passionate about the subject and the work, and you can learn a lot from him.

In the past couple of years, the course has undergone a few major revisions aimed at improving it. The course is still constantly changing, so I cannot guarantee that any of what I write about will still be true if you decide to take this course sometime in the future. People who were unfortunate enough to take it last semester had to write papers on each lab every week, but after far too many complaints, the workload has been dramatically reduced. The Esther statistics for Fall 2010 will not be representative of how the class currently is. Statistics from Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 should be more reflective of the true nature of this course.

The main downside is that time commitment involved. It is only a one credit hour class, but you have to spend probably three to five hours a week either in lab or doing the work. This class isn’t an easy A because you don’t have to do anything; it is an easy A because the amount of thought and effort required for the work is very low, and getting an A is guaranteed for the people that want it.