Biological Anthropology

ANTH&205—Hybrid

Course Description

This course introduces the anthropological study of how human biological characteristics arose and how the human species continues to be shaped by evolutionary forces. Major topics include the exploration of human genetics, biological adaptation and variation, human origins, evolutionary principles, comparative primate behavior and morphology, and applied biological anthropology.

Throughout the quarter, you will be exposed to multimodal learning strategies, including active, hands-on, and peer learning, which will encourage you to think deeply about who/what we are, how we got here, and what it means to be human. You will be encouraged to cultivate higher-order cognitive skills, including metacognition (an awareness of one's own thought processes) and critical, creative, and evaluative thinking, which are skills that will help you to be a successful learner in this class and throughout your academic career.

*Please be advised that there are activities in this course that involve working with human skeletal remains and replicas of human ancestor skulls, as well as course content that includes visual depictions of human skeletal remains. The human skeletal remains are research quality and were ethically obtained through a donor. None of the human skeletal materials depicted in this class fall under the purview of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 or violate ethical standards established by professional anthropological associations. If you are uncomfortable with working with human skeletal remains or replicas, please reach out so that I can make alternative accommodations for you.

Course Goals (Learning Outcomes)

Below is a list of specific skills that this course is designed to guide you towards obtaining. Every assignment that you complete in this course will contribute to your progress towards meeting these goals. After this class has ended, it is my hope that you will use the knowledge and skills that you have obtained from this class in your personal and professional life. By the end of this class, you should be able to do the following:

Demonstrate knowledge of the forces of evolution, and their impact on genes, DNA, and species variation.
Outline anthropology’s biocultural approach to researching humans and their ancestors.
Describe key biological events of human evolutionary history.
Apply the scientific method to investigate human and non-human primate biological adaptation and variation.
Articulate and evaluate dominant theories regarding human and primate evolution.

Readings & Learning Materials

Access "Explorations" here!

In order to reduce the costs associated with higher education, all of your reading materials will be made available to you for free and you do not need to purchase a textbook for this course. Rather, you will be assigned readings from Open Educational Resources (OERs), which are teaching and learning materials that are free to use for the public, in addition to electronic textbook and book chapters, journal articles, and websites. Other educational materials may include documentaries, video clips, and podcasts.

The primary OER eBook for this course is Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology, 2nd Edition, by Shook et al., eds. 2023.

This eBook can be accessed using the button underneath the textbook title An electronic version of the eBook can be found on Canvas under the "Reading Materials" module, which is where you can find other required and suggested readings for this course. Readings and other learning materials also available on Canvas under the "Reading and Learning Materials" module, which is where you can find additional required and suggested reading and learning materials for this course. Reading/learning materials will also be linked in the weekly modules under the days that they are assigned to be completed.

Please be sure to finish readings before class on the days that they are assigned to be completed, since classroom discussions, activities, and lectures will include information from the readings. Completing readings in advance of class allows for a deeper level of understanding of the information that you will encounter in both the readings and the class lectures and activities, as well as helps you to draw connections between related concepts across multiple contexts. In this way, completing the readings before class helps you to learn rather than encounter material in the classroom, which allows for higher order thinking in class (this is a student-led instructional strategy known as the "flipped classroom").

Required Technology

This class requires access to a computer, the internet, a word processing program (like Microsoft Word), and a PDF reader.

Computers are available in a wide variety of locations across campus. Here is a complete list of SFCC Computer Labs. The SFCC Library has laptops available for checkout, as well as hotspots for internet access.

SFCC provides you with a Bigfoot Student Email, which you can use to access Office 365 online products (like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel), Library databases, the campus wifi network (CCS Net), and college-owned student equipment.

Personal IT help is available in the basement of the library in room 17-003A. Online IT assistance is also available at SFCC Online IT Help or by calling (509) 533-4357.

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