Saturday, February 11, 2017

Week 3 Post 1

The Start of The Course; Kick-Off Assignment, and Formatting

This week I started the Animal Behavior Course with edX, and I am enjoying the topics and format of the class very much. The class is self-paced which is great, and there are lots of videos along with interactive assignments.

The first assignment given by the course was to go for a walk and observe all animal life, including humans. The responses are written in a discussion forum.
My response:
After every video, there are one or two multiple choice questions.
Some facts from the first video/topic:
  • Evolution unifies all biology
    • Helps understand animal behavior
  • Biological evolution - descent with modification
    • Assumes all living things have a common ancestor
  • More than 67,000 vertebrate species, and over 1.3 million invertebrate species have been discovered since humans started recording them
  • Phylogeny - evolutionary relationships
  • Three main processes of modification: mutation, genetic drift, and natural selection.
    • Mutation - randomly occurs
    • Genetic Drift - random
    • Natural selection - not random

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