College of Science & Engineering Technology - Open & Free Materials: Biological Sciences

Concepts of Biology is designed for the typical introductory biology course for nonmajors, covering standard scope and sequence requirements. The text includes interesting applications and conveys the major themes of biology, with content that is meaningful and easy to understand. The book is designed to demonstrate biology concepts and to promote scientific literacy.

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• Open License: CC-BY
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BI101A is a survey course that introduces the discipline of cellular biology, exploring topics including the scientific method, parts of a cell, and how cells function. This book focuses on putting those topics into an appropriate context for students who are not biology majors.

• Open License: CC-BY

BI102A is a survey course that introduces the discipline of molecular biology and genetics, exploring topics including cell division, protein production, inheritance and gene regulation. This book focuses on putting those topics into an appropriate context for students who are not biology majors.

• Open License: CC-BY

Biology Comics is an open-source (free) comics-based textbook for students and educators. The level of detail and content is meant to mirror that of a standard Biology course for non-major college and advanced high school students.

• Open License: Unclear

This laboratory manual is intended for use in a biology laboratory course taken by non-science majors, pre-biology, and pre-allied health majors.

• Open License: CC-BY
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Biology 2e is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester biology course for science majors. Includes practice and homework questions.

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This text is a re-structuring the “classical” introductory botany course into a more logical sequence of themes with two main ideas: (1) put as much plant-related information as possible into an evolutionary context and (2) explain complicated problems with simple words and metaphors.

• Open License: CC-0 (Public Domain)

Biology 2e is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester biology course for science majors. Includes practice and homework questions.

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• Open License: CC-BY
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This college-level open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues from a biological perspective.

• Open License: CC-BY

"Focuses on the most relevant environmental science issues and addresses ways to incorporate sustainable practices. The text is designed for an introductory-level college science course. Topics include the fundamentals of ecology, biodiversity, pollution, climate change, food production, human population growth, and incorporating sustainable approaches in our communities, economies, and environments. This resource is targeted at environmental science students."

• Open License: CC-BY

Anatomy and Physiology 2e is developed to meet the scope and sequence for a two-semester human anatomy and physiology course for life science and allied health majors. The book is organized by body systems. The revision focuses on inclusive and equitable instruction and includes new student support. Illustrations have been extensively revised to be clearer and more inclusive. The web-based version of Anatomy and Physiology 2e also features links to surgical videos, histology, and interactive diagrams. Please learn more about the changes by previewing the preface.

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• Open License: CC-BY
• Paper book available for a fee

targets undergraduate or graduate students who have completed an introductory anatomy course and are beginning to apply their anatomical knowledge to the human body, as well as healthcare professionals engaged in patient assessment and treatment.

• Open License: CC-BY

This is a lab manual for a college-level human anatomy course. Mastery of anatomy requires a fair amount of memorization and recall skills. The activities in this manual encourage students to engage with new vocabulary in many ways, including grouping key terms, matching terms to structures, recalling definitions, and written exercises. Most of the activities in this manual utilize anatomical models, and several dissections of animal tissues and histological examinations are also included. Each unit includes both pre- and post-lab questions and six lab exercises designed for a classroom where students move from station to station. The vocabulary terms used in each unit are listed at the end of the manual and serve as a checklist for practicals.

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Aligns to the topics and objectives of introductory behavioral neuroscience courses. Students will begin to understand how the physiology of the nervous system and the environment dictate our movements, thoughts and feelings. Students will be challenged to think about real neuroscience experiments, appreciate how neuroscience knowledge evolves over time, and consider open questions in the field.

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• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Microbiology covers the scope and sequence requirements for a single-semester microbiology course for non-majors. The book presents the core concepts of microbiology with a focus on applications for careers in allied health.

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• Open License: CC-BY
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Developed to supplement OpenStax Microbiology at Atlanta Metropolitan State College. Topics include smear preparation, simple, gram, acid, and endospore staining, environmental effects on bacterial growth, and bacterial isolation from a mixed culture.

• Open License: CC-BY

Created at Salt Lake Community College by students under the direction of microbiology instructor Tim Beagley to accompany the OpenStax Microbiology textbook. Every chapter includes a pre-lab reading, a pre-lab worksheet, a lab protocol, and a lab worksheet.

• Open License: Unclear

The exercises in this laboratory manual are designed to engage students in hand-on activities that reinforce their understanding of the microbial world. Topics covered include: staining and microscopy, metabolic testing, physical and chemical control of microorganisms, and immunology. The target audience is primarily students preparing for a career in the health sciences, however many of the topics would be appropriate for a general microbiology course as well.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA
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• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Companion text to comprehensive style guides for the biomedical sciences. Walks through best practices for writing scientific papers and grant proposals in a concise and accessible format.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA
• Paper book available for a fee

A grasp of the logic and practice of science is essential to understand the rest of the world around us. To that end, this text remains focused on experimental support for what we know about cell and molecular biology, and on showing students the relationship of cell structure and function. Rather than trying to be a comprehensive reference book, this text selectively details investigative questions, methods and experiments that lead to our understanding of cell biology.

• Open License: CC-BY

The course introduces students to molecular cell biology within the context of a semester-long research project in functional genomics. In the Pathways over Time project, students study the evolutionary conservation of genes in methionine synthesis. Each chapter includes both theoretical background material as well as detailed experimental procedures. Chapters can be used alone or in combination, depending on the course.

• Open License: CC-BY

This textbook was written for collegiate Cell and Molecular Biology courses and may be appropriate at both an introductory level and also as a resource for more advanced courses.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Ecology text designed in modules so that instructors can choose the pieces that make sense to assign in their context. Developed as a collaborative effort of authors at Gettysburg College, Franklin & Marshall College, and University of Pittsburgh.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Quantitative Ecology introduces and discusses the principles of ecology from populations to ecosystems including human populations, disease, exotic organisms, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity and global dynamics. The book also reformulates and unifies ecological equations making them more accessible to the reader and easier to teach.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC

The manual provides specific examples of how we conducted a series of hypothesis-driven laboratory and field experiments in Comparative Vertebrate Physiology (CVP). This manual is highly adaptable, suitable for nearly any CVP lab course, using any textbook or no text. Also, the experiments themselves can be adapted to suit nearly any environment in which the course is taught. The materials and equipment needed are inexpensive for the most part, and commonly available in university departments of biology. Finally, the fact that the students themselves created the laboratory experiences, with guiding input from the professor, makes the impact of the exercises especially great.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

This resource is written for an introductory or intermediate-level college genetics course. Covers exploration of DNA and genome structure, molecular genetics, causes and effects of mutation, transmission genetics, and concludes with topics that synthesize information from both transmission and molecular genetics, including epigenetics, cancer biology, and evolution. Science is meant to be an impartial field of study, but it is nonetheless influenced by social factors that drive which research questions are pursued and that color how results are interpreted or acted upon. In this text, the fundamental concepts of genetics are described in the context of the historical and social pressures that affect the work.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

• Open License: CC-BY-SA

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

"Digital Histology is organized as chapters that parallel those of most histology textbooks. Each of the over 1600 pages contains an original, high quality image accompanied by descriptive text and selectable labels. In addition, interactive quizzes with formative feedback accompany each chapter of Digital Histology. A review textbook with hyperlinks to images in the main package is also included. "

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA

This set of lecture materials, laboratory notes, and activities are ancillary materials created for use with OpenStax Microbiology.

• Open License: CC-BY

Designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements for the single semester Microbiology course for non-majors and allied health students. The book presents the core concepts of microbiology with a focus on applications for careers in allied health.

• Accompanying lab manual can also be downloaded.
• Open License: CC-BY

Mathematical modelling plays an increasingly important role in life sciences, and this interactive textbook explores the areas of population ecology, infectious diseases, immunology and cell dynamics, gene networks and pharmacokinetics. Alex hopes that it will be useful for anyone who is interested in learning how to model biological systems, including undergraduate and postgraduate mathematics students, life-sciences students with an interest in modelling, and post-16 mathematics students interested in university-level material. Some mathematical knowledge is assumed, and the mathematical models used are all in the form of ordinary differential equations.

• Open License: CC-BY

Companion text to comprehensive style guides for the biomedical sciences. Walks through best practices for writing scientific papers and grant proposals in a concise and accessible format.

• Open License: CC-BY-NC-SA
• Paper book available for a fee