Animal Science: Intro to the Cat and Dog

This is a whirlwind tour of the science of our best friends - the cat and dog! Students will learn about different aspects of our most popular companion species, such as their history, biology, behavior, and health.

Asynchronous Online Course; Open to degree and PACE students

Scientific principles of nutrition, breeding selection, health, management practices, behavior, and animal-human interactions. The course is split, with half of the course focusing on cats and the other half focusing on dogs. This is an online asynchronous course. As an N1 course, there is an emphasis on the scientific process and scientific literacy.

Students will have weekly modules to complete that consist of recorded lectures and supplemental materials (e.g., popular science and peer reviewed articles to read, videos to watch, websites to visit, and typically one chapter book to read). While it is up to the student when they work through the course material within the week, the the weekly deadline is fixed and late work will not be accepted. Students should expect to spend around six hours per week outside of "class time" on this course per University policy regarding work required for a three credit hour course

Students are assessed via weekly Brightspace quizzes that include both content comprehension checks as well as additional assignments that are more similar to traditional homework (e.g., find a peer reviewed article and answer questions about it). Students also complete a project on either cats (a written report with a visual component) or dogs (creating an educational video).