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Students completing the Biology Education track will receive a BS in Biology and a BA in Secondary Education and will be prepared for certification as a secondary-school (middle school or high school) biology teacher. A full major in a content area and an education degree is a rigorous approach to teacher preparation that is recommended by the National Science Foundation and others. Completing this track in four years requires careful planning; you should work closely with your academic advisor as well as faculty mentors in both Biology and Education. See the College catalog for course descriptions and pre-requisites.
| BS - Biology Education track with BA in Secondary Education | ||
| Year | Fall | Spring |
| 1 | BIOL 195 MATH 1401 PSYC 100 CARD 1012 (or 102) |
BIOL 210 CHEM 121 EDUC 101 CARD 102 (or 101) |
| 2 | BIOL 220 PHYS 1313 EDUC 200 EDUC 290 (field experience, 1 cr) GenEd Arts |
BIOL 230 BIOL 240 (2 cr) CHEM 122 EDUC 330 GenEd Wellbeing (2 cr) |
| 3 | 300-level BIOL elective4 BIOL 3905 (2 cr) SCIE 1413 EDUC 322 (2 cr) EDUC 360 EDUC 390 (field experience, 1 cr) |
300-level BIOL elective 300-level BIOL elective BIOL 2906 (0 cr) MATH 151 EDUC 411 |
| 4 | BIOL 4007 BIOL 4906 (1 cr) EDUC 403 (2 cr) EDUC 446 EDUC 490 (field experience, 1 cr) GenEd Humanities CARD 400 (2 cr) |
EDUC 494/496 (12 cr): Student teaching |
Notes:
1MATH 140 (pre-calculus) is not required for the major and may be omitted by students prepared to go directly to MATH 151 (calculus I).
2This four-year plan includes all the courses needed to meet North Central's Cardinal Directions general education requirements as well as the major requirements.
3Certification in Illinois requires competencies in sciences outside biology; physics and earth science courses built into the major satisfy this requirement.
4For certification in secondary education, biology electives should be chosen to include at least one plant course and at least one animal course.
5BIOL majors take BIOL 390 for two credits to explore careers through seminar presentations and classroom study.
6BIOL majors take the BIOL 290 Seminar course once for zero credit as audience members/evaluators prior to presenting their own research in BIOL 490.
7BIOL 400 has two different lab sections, one more molecular/cellular and one more organismal/ecological. Choose your lab section based on the kind of research project you would like to complete.