Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Selected topics in areas not currently offered within the undergraduate course offerings.

COURSE DETAILS:

PREREQUISITES:   Undergraduate students should have taken HSCI 100 and HSCI 216 or similar courses. These requisites do not apply to graduate students.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:   Women’s reproduction differs notably in key traits from other mammalian females including a prolonged period of reproductive maturation, lack of estrous, a radically invasive placenta and long period of maternal investment combined with high levels of allomaternal care (care for offspring provided by individuals others than the mother).  Students participating in this course will discuss the possible relationship between these and other reproductive features with another rare reproductive trait: continuous rather than seasonal ovulation. To that aim we will investigate possible evolutionary links between stress and women’s reproductive function.  

COURSE OBJECTIVES   Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:  
•     Understand the ecologic and evolutionary principles that underlie women’s reproduction
•     Discuss potential evolutionary origins of some key human reproductive traits
•     Evaluate the impact that each trait’s evolutionary history and current ecology may have in the reproductive life of modern women
•     Analyze basic interactions between the social and physical environment faced by women and reproductive outcomes
•     Understand how and ecological challenges (which includes social and physical) can affect reproductive patterns and impact the health and well-being of women and children.
 
Core Competencies for the BA and BSc Programs addressed in this course include:  
Core Concepts in Population and Public Health (primary)
Strategies for Preventing Disease and Promoting Health (reinforcing)                                                     
Measuring Health and Disease (reinforcing)                                                                                             
Systems and critical thinking (reinforcing)                                                                                     

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES:   Upon completion of the course students are expected to have honed their ability to comprehend scientific articles, improved their ability to analyze scientific evidence critically and develop their own arguments.  Students will learn to compile annotated bibliographies, advance their academic writing abilities and work in collaboration with their peers. In terms of specific scientific knowledge students taking this course will learn about the role of phylogeny, ontogeny and ecology (both social and physical) has on women’s reproductive biology as well as their health and that of their children.  

ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE:   This course includes five (5) main activities: 1. readings, 2. summaries, 3. presentations, 4. participation in discussion sessions and 5. a term paper. Required reading materials corresponding to each discussion session are indicated in this syllabus (below). Students MUST:
1.    Read all assigned materials (2 to 5 required articles per session, mode 4).
2.    Produce a half page summary of each and all of the required articles for each session, and submit it in the Assignments section of CANVAS before that session.
3.    Students will choose one of the required articles for this course and will prepare a 15 minutes presentation with visual aids (e.g.: PowerPoint format) to explain the article to the class and then help lead a 10’ discussion about it. The goal of a discussion leader is to stimulate participation from the other students.
4.    Students are expected to participate in all discussion sessions.
5.    Term Paper: Following the schedule below, each student will choose at least 5 (and no more than 8) of the scientific articles that conform the reading list for this course (required or optional) to develop a Term Paper according to the Guidelines posted in CANVAS.

Term Papers’ (TP) schedule:
1.                              Sept 20 Declare TP topic in CANVAS
2.                              Oct 5 Submit TP Précis in CANVAS
3.                              Oct 20 Submit TP’s your draft in CANVAS.
4.                              Nov 14th Submit the Final Version of your Term Paper in CANVAS  

IMPORTANT NOTE: You are encouraged to contact your Tutor Marker (TM) and work closely with them in the development of your paper. 

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: