Biological Science, Canadian Edition, 4th edition

Published by Pearson (June 7, 2023) © 2024

  • Scott Freeman University of Washington
  • Kim Quillin Salisbury University
  • Lizabeth Allison College of William and Mary
  • Michael Black California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
  • Greg Podgorski Utah State University
  • Emily Taylor California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
  • Jeff Carmichael University of North Dakota
  • Michael Harrington University of Alberta
  • Joan C. Sharp Simon Fraser University

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Learn biology by learning to think like a scientist.

Since its trailblazing First Edition, Biological Science has delivered numerous biology teaching innovations that emphasize higher-order thinking skills and conceptual understanding rather than an encyclopedic grasp of what is known about biology. With each edition, this approach has grown and improved to better help students make the shift from being novice learners to expert learners. Central to this shift is a student-centered approach that provides deep support for the learning of core content and the development of key skills that help students learn and practice biology. 

Biological Science brings together Scott Freeman's pioneering inquiry-based, active learning approach with carefully selected coverage of Canadian issues and research. Each page of the book is designed in the spirit of active learning, asking students to apply critical thinking skills as they learn key concepts. Accounts of researchers designing and analyzing real experiments, carefully punctuated by thoughtful questions and exercises, train introductory students in the process of DOING biology.

Hallmark features of this title

  • Unique BioSkills reference section is now placed earlier in the text to draw attention to key skills students need to succeed in biology. Previously located in an appendix at the end of the text, this easy-to-find reference material now follows Chapter 1 to better support the development of skills throughout the course. Each BioSkill includes practice exercises in the book and in MasteringBiology that reinforce each skill.
  • End-of-chapter case studies appear in every chapter and provide a brief summary of contemporary biology research in action. Titled “Put It All Together,” each case study helps students connect what they learn in class with current, real-world biology research questions.
  • A wide variety of practice questions and exercises designed to encourage students to stop to test their understanding as they are reading are highlighted in blue throughout the text.
  • Data sources are included for all graphs and charts throughout the text to emphasize the research process that leads to our understanding of biology concepts.

New GenAI Study Tool

We’ve heard how important it is for students to use reliable AI tools in responsible and productive ways. To that end, Pearson is focused on creating tools that combine the power of generative AI with trusted Pearson content to provide students with a simplified study experience, delivering on-demand and personalised support that compliments your teaching and aligns with the text you’ve chosen. The Study Tool is available to students who access the Pearson eText on its own or through MyLab.

What can the AI Study Tool do?

  • Generate simplified explanations of challenging sections
  • Summarize material to help learners focus on key topics and ideas
  • Students can ask for multiple choice or short answer questions related to a specific chapter or section to help fill knowledge gaps
  • For extra practice, students can also generate flashcards and notes based on their chat interaction with the tool

New and updated features of this title

  • As the world shifts to a greater reliance on digital media, it is appropriate that this resource evolves as well. This Fourth Canadian Edition is the first fully digital version of Biological Science. Instructors and students will find that, although the medium has changed, the content is fully consistent with prior editions.
  • Indigenous Examples and Perspectives. Provides increased discussion of Indigenous perspectives and contributions to biological understanding. Two new Canadian Issues boxes focus on these themes. Canadian Issues 49.1 discusses how collaborative partnerships among Indigenous groups and government scientists are increasingly playing a vital role in ecological decision making. Canadian Issues 34.1 describes the estuarine root gardens of British Columbia's Heiltsuk Nation. 
  • CRISPR and COVID-19. Since its discovery in 2011, the CRISPR method of genome editing has become a major scientific tool. CRISPR is now covered in a new section in Ch. 20 and is discussed as a form of natural selection and pest organism management in Ch. 22 and Ch. 27, respectively. The massive shift in biomedical research to study the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the COVID-19 disease is reflected in an updated Ch. 33 and examples in many other chapters.
  • Canadian Research. As listed in the chapter-by-chapter list, there are several new Canadian Research boxes. These introduce students to fascinating scientists such as Darlene Lim (CR 26.1) who searches for prokaryotic life in extreme environments and Amanda Moehring (CR 47.1) who studies animal reproduction. Existing CR boxes have been updated; for example, the liposomal nanoparticles developed at the University of British Columbia (CR 6.1) are now a component of the Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Other examples are discussed in the chapters themselves or within new end-of-chapter questions. 

Important Digital Assets in Mastering

  • New GenAI Study Tool. We’ve heard how important it is for students to use reliable AI tools in responsible and productive ways. To that end, Pearson is focused on creating tools that combine the power of generative AI with trusted Pearson content to provide students with a simplified study experience, delivering on-demand and personalised support that compliments your teaching and aligns with the text you’ve chosen.
  • Interactive Figure Walk-through Videos. Figure Walkthroughs guide students through key figures with narrated explanations, figure markups, and questions that reinforce important points. Questions embedded in each Figure Walkthrough encourage students to be active participants in their learning.The videos are in the eText and included in assignable activities in Mastering Biology that allow students to apply what they've learned.
  • Making Models Activities. Whiteboard videos—accessible online via the Study Area in Mastering Biology help students develop their visual modelling skills. The videos are also included in assignable activities that allow students to practise modelling and to apply their understanding to new situations.
  • Case Study Questions. Put It All Together Case Study questions are assignable in Mastering Biology. Additional clicker questions are also provided in instructor resources to facilitate classroom activities.
  • Solve It Tutorials. These activities allow students to act like scientists in simulated investigations. Each tutorial presents an interesting, real-world question that students will answer by analyzing and interpreting data.
  • Experimental Inquiry Tutorials. The call to teach students about the process of science has never been louder. To support such teaching, there are 10 interactive tutorials on classic scientific experiments—ranging from Meselson–Stahl on DNA replication to the Grants' work on Galápagos finches and Connell's work on competition. Students who use these tutorials should be better prepared to think critically about experimental design and evaluate the wider implications of the data—preparing them to do the work of real scientists in the future.
  • BioFlix® 3-D Animations. BioFlix® 3-D Animations help students visualize biology with movie-quality animations that can be presented in class, reviewed by students on their own in the Study Area or eText, and assigned in Mastering Biology. BioFlix Tutorials use the animations as a jumping-off point for Mastering Biology coaching exercises on tough topics.
  • HHMI Short Films. Documentary-quality movies from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that explore topics from the discovery of the double helix to evolution with assignable questions are available in Mastering Biology with assignable questions to make sure students understand key ideas.
  • Galápagos Evolution Video Activities. These video activities, filmed on the Galapagos Islands by Peter and Rosemary Grant, bring to life the dynamic evolutionary processes that impact Darwin's finches on Daphne Major Island. These explore important concepts and data from the Grants' field research and include assignable activities.
  • GraphIt! Coaching Activities. Interpreting Graphs and Data Activities help students develop basic data analysis skills and practise applying these skills by interpreting data about environmental issues. 
  • Blue Thread Questions. Over 500 questions based on the Blue Thread questions in the textbook are assignable in Mastering Biology.
  • Big Picture Concept Map Tutorials. A new, more engaging concept mapping tool is the basis for highly interactive, challenging concept map activities based on the Big Picture figures in the textbook. Students build their own concept maps, which are auto-graded, and then answer questions to make sure they understand key ideas and make important connections.
  • BioSkills Activities. Activities based on the BioSkills content in the textbook are assignable in Mastering Biology, including activities to support the new BioSkills.
  1. Biology and the Tree of Life BioSkills
  2. Water and Carbon: The Chemical Basis of Life
  3. Protein Structure and Function
  4. Nucleic Acids and the RNA World
  5. An Introduction to Carbohydrates
  6. Lipids, Membranes, and the First Cells
  7. Inside the Cell
  8. Energy and Enzymes
  9. Cellular Respiration and Fermentation
  10. Photosynthesis
  11. Cell Interactions
  12. The Cell Cycle
  13. Meiosis
  14. Mendel and the Gene
  15. DNA and the Gene: Synthesis and Repair
  16. How Genes Work
  17. Transcription, RNA Processing, and Translation
  18. Control of Gene Expression in Bacteria
  19. Control of Gene Expression in Eukaryotes
  20. The Molecular Revolution: Biotechnology and Beyond
  21. Gene Structure and Development
  22. Evolution by Natural Selection
  23. Evolutionary Processes
  24. Speciation
  25. Phylogenies and the History of Life
  26. Bacteria and Archaea
  27. Protists
  28. Green Algae and Land Plants
  29. Fungi
  30. An Introduction to Animals
  31. Protostome Animals
  32. Deuterostome Animals
  33. Viruses
  34. Plant Form and Function
  35. Water and Sugar Transport in Plants
  36. Plant Nutrition
  37. Plant Sensory Systems, Signals, and Responses
  38. Plant Reproduction and Development
  39. Animal Form and Function
  40. Water and Electrolyte Balance in Animals
  41. Animal Nutrition
  42. Gas Exchange and Circulation
  43. Animal Nervous Systems
  44. Animal Sensory Systems
  45. Animal Movement
  46. Chemical Signals in Animals
  47. Animal Reproduction and Development
  48. The Immune System in Animals
  49. An Introduction to Ecology
  50. Behavioural Ecology
  51. Population Ecology
  52. Community Ecology
  53. Ecosystems and Global Ecology
  54. Biodiversity and Conservation Biology

Scott Freeman received a PhD in Zoology from the University of Washington and was subsequently awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Postdoctoral Fellowship in Molecular Evolution at Princeton University. He has done research in evolutionary biology on topics ranging from nest parasitism to the molecular systematics of the blackbird family and is coauthor, with Jon Herron, of the standard-setting undergraduate text Evolutionary Analysis. Scott is the recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Washington and is currently a Principal Lecturer in the UW Department of Biology, where he teaches introductory biology for majors, a writing-intensive course for majors called The Tree of Life, and a graduate seminar in college science teaching. Scott's current research focuses on how active learning affects student learning and academic performance.

Lizabeth A. Allison is Chancellor Professor of Biology at the College of William & Mary. She received her PhD in Zoology from the University of Washington, specializing in molecular and cellular biology. Before coming to William & Mary, she spent eight years as a faculty member at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Liz teaches introductory biology for majors and upper division molecular biology courses. She has mentored graduate students and more than 120 undergraduate research students, many of them coauthoring papers with her on intracellular trafficking of the thyroid hormone receptor in normal and cancer cells. The recipient of numerous awards, including a State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) Outstanding Faculty Award in 2009, Liz received one of the three inaugural Arts Shouland Sciences Faculty Awards for Teaching Excellence in 2011, and a Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence in 2012. In addition to her work on this text, she is author of Fundamental Molecular Biology, now in its second edition, with a third edition under way.

Michael Black received his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Stanford University School of Medicine as a Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellow. After graduation, he studied cell biology as a Burroughs Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. His current research focuses on the use of molecules to identify and track the transmission of microbes in the environment. Michael is a professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he teaches introductory and advanced classes for majors in cell biology and microbiology. In addition to his teaching and research activities, Michael serves as the director of the Undergraduate Biotechnology Lab, where he works alongside undergraduate technicians to integrate research projects and inquiry-based activities into undergraduate classes.

Greg Podgorski received his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Penn State University and has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Plank Institute for Biochemistry and Columbia University. His research interests are in biology education, developmental genetics, and computational biology. Greg's most recent work has been in mathematical modeling of how patterns of different cell types emerge during development and how tumors recruit new blood vessels in cancer. Greg has been teaching at Utah State University for more than 20 years in courses that include introductory biology for majors and nonmajors, genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, and microbiology, and he has offered courses in nonmajors biology in Beijing and Hong Kong. He has won teaching awards at Utah State University and has been recognized by the National Academies as a Teaching Fellow and a Teaching Mentor.

Kim Quillin received her BA in Biology at Oberlin College summa cum laude and her PhD in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. Kim has worked in the trenches with Scott Freeman on every edition of Biological Science, starting with the ground-up development of the illustrations in the first edition in 1999 and expanding her role in each edition. Kim currently serves as the Curriculum Coordinator for Introductory Biology for Salisbury University (SU), a member of the University System of Maryland, where she is actively involved in the ongoing student-centered reform of the course for biology majors. She also serves as the Curriculum Facilitator for the biology department, focusing on programmatic review and alignment of the SU biology curriculum to the Vision and Change core concepts and competencies.

Jeff Carmichael received his BS in Biology from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and his PhD in Plant Biology from the University of Georgia. As an undergraduate student, he spent some time studying enzyme kinetics through a fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. His graduate work focused on sexual reproduction in an intriguing group of seed plants. He has been teaching and coordinating Introductory Biology at the University of North Dakota (UND) for more than 20 years. He also works with the campus-wide Teaching Transformation and Development Academy, where he helps other faculty members incorporate evidence-based best teaching practices in their courses. He has received excellence in teaching awards at UND and as a graduate student in Georgia.

Emily Taylor earned a BA in English at the University of California, Berkeley. She then earned a PhD in Biological Sciences from Arizona State University, where she conducted research in the field of environmental physiology as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She is currently a professor of Biological Sciences at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Her student-centered research program focuses on the endocrine and reproductive physiology of free-ranging reptiles, especially rattlesnakes. She teaches numerous undergraduate and graduate courses, including introductory biology, anatomy and physiology, endocrinology, and herpetology, and received the California Faculty Association's Distinguished Educator Award in 2010 and Cal Poly's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2012.

MIKE HARRINGTON completed his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in the Zoology Department of the University of British Columbia. His graduate work on Drosophila chromatin structure combined classical and molecular genetics. He is presently a Faculty Lecturer in the Biological Sciences Department at the University of Alberta. He teaches cell biology at the first- and second-year levels and genetics at the second-, third-, and fourth-year levels. His teaching goals are (1) to find ways to incorporate current scientific research into introductory courses, (2) to develop new ways to expand a course's boundaries with online material, and (3) to use clicker classroom response systems to teach content with questions.

JOAN SHARP received her B.A. and B.Sc. from McGill University and her M.Sc. from the University of British Columbia. She is a Teaching Professor at Simon Fraser University, where she teaches Biology of Everyday Life, Introduction to Biology, General Biology, and Vertebrate Biology. Her teaching and research interests include a number of areas: (1) Argumentation is a key component of critical thinking and scientific reasoning. Effective argumentation requires the selection and evaluation of evidence in order to articulate and defend a carefully thought-out position. Development of this essential scientific skill may benefit from a supportive learning environment in which students are prompted with a controversial question and provided with explicit instruction on argumentation. (2) Case studies engage students with key concepts by using meaningful real-world scenarios. The use of clickers allows the implementation of case studies in large lecture courses, facilitating small group discussion and increasing student learning. (3) Prior or newly acquired misconceptions interfere with student success in building meaningful biological understanding. It is important to understand common misconceptions and to develop activities that allow students to address and correct their misconceptions. Concept inventories can be used to measure students' learning gains to assess the success of teaching strategies targeting student misconceptions. Students' written work can serve as a starting point to address areas of misunderstanding and to help students refine and express biological ideas.

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