Drew Burns

Life Science General Education

General education is a topic that many students roll their eyes at. General education is a

set of subjects that all students are required to take credits in regardless of desired degree or

major. In reality, while many students hate the idea of it, general education improves students’

lives and society as a whole. By being introduced to a wide range of topics, students have the

opportunity to be more well rounded and ‘down to earth’ per say. All students have a chance to

at least have a little understanding on the way things work outside of their major of interest. The

result is ultimately individuals and even cultures and societies with less ignorance and bigotry.

More specifically, I feel it is important to take a life science general education course.

This subject not only helps students be more understanding as they acquire knowledge, but the

knowledge acquired is more useful. It’s important to understand the science of life and for many

reasons. We learn more about the basic needs of our own body and systems within, we learn the

functions of other living organisms that we interact with and even need in order to survive, and

we learn specific things we can do to take better care of our own lives as well as those living

organisms we interact with. All of these things and more are reasons it is important to take life

science general education credits.

Let’s discuss the characteristics of life as we’ve discussed the importance of life science.

Basically, the characteristics of life are: order, reproduction, growth and development, energy

utilization, environmental response, homeostasis, and evolutionary adaptation. To delve a little

deeper, we know that a thing is living if it has order or is highly organized.

We know that living things must be able to reproduce. This goes for animals mating, plants

seeding, and even cell division.

Living things grow and develop over time. You see the difference and maturity of any living

organism. For example, humans start as a tiny fetus and develop into tubby babies and grow to

be four times the size they originated at. Trees start as seeds and develop as little green saplings,

ultimately to become towering and rigid structures giving shelter, sustenance, and oxygen to

other living organisms.

All living things utilize energy to survive. Energy comes in many different forms, but all living

organisms need to take in energy to live. This is like animals and humans eating or drinking, or

plants taking in light energy.

We know that a thing is living if it responds to environment. There are countless plants that

open or close to maintain a consistent temperature as the temperature changes. We sweat and

shiver in order to do the same thing.

All living things practice homeostasis, or the regulation of metabolic processes. Certain

organisms gain massive amounts of fat to survive the cold for example.

Finally, living organisms must adapt to their surroundings. We have observed the different

characteristics embraced by different animals in order to survive in their habitat, such as big-

beaked birds in an area where there is a high abundance of hard nuts.

These are all characteristics of living organisms that we learn in the life sciences.

An important aspect of life sciences and even sciences in general is the scientific method.

The scientific method includes a number of steps to follow in order to come to a conclusion or to
know something. It all starts with an observation which turns into a question. Before you strive

to find the answer to the question, you must first hypothesize what you think might be the

conclusion. Following is the experimentation and what really sets apart the scientific method

from other methods of learning. Once the experiment is complete, you modify and update your

hypothesis based on the results and restart the process until you find an ultimate answer.

Like mentioned earlier, not many students get very excited about needing to take general

education. I know of people who don’t want to take the sciences because they know for certain

they’re not going to end up a scientist or a doctor. However, there are beneficial skills developed

as you practice and learn the sciences. A successful scientist not only uses the scientific method

as a tool, but the scientific method is the way they think about and approach things. Successful

scientists also have a skill of questioning within them. I feel that these two tendencies or skills

are not only important for a successful scientist, but for successful individuals in whatever field

they might be pursuing. The more curious you are, the more questions you ask, and the more

experiments you hold all lead up to more knowledge and mastery in your craft.

This semester I’m hoping to learn more about the way cells work. I have glimpses of

knowledge on the subject from high school, but I definitely want to relearn the workings of cells

because I feel like knowing more specifically how your body is working is beneficial to anyone

no matter what their pursuits.