Campbell Biology: Concepts & Connections, 9th Edition

Personalize learning with Mastering Biology

Mastering^™ Biology is an online homework, tutorial, and assessment product designed to improve results by helping students quickly master concepts. Students benefit from self-paced activities that feature personalized wrong-answer feedback to emulate the office-hour experience and help keep students on track. With a wide range of interactive, engaging, and assignable activities, many of them created by the Campbell Biology: Concepts and Connections authors, students are encouraged to actively learn and retain tough course concepts.  New Mastering Biology activities for this edition include “Key Topic Overview” videos that help students efficiently review key topics outside of class, “Evaluating Science in the Media” activities that help students to build science literacy skills, and more “Visualizing the Concept” animated videos help students further visualize and understand complex biological processes.

In Mastering Biology:

• NEW! Key Topic Overview videos introduce students to key concepts and vocabulary and are created by authors Eric Simon, Jean Dickey and Kelly Hogan. All 13 videos deliver a whiteboard style mini-lesson, designed as an introductory overview to key concepts in the course, and are accompanied by assessment so that students can check their understanding.
• EXPANDED! Visualizing the Concept Activities use video and animations to guide students. By bringing these key illustrations from the text to life, students have the opportunity to master tough topics and learn through practice. Wrong-answer feedback is provided to coach students to success.
• Hundreds of Mastering Biology activities, including over 200 developed by the author team, create a dynamic resource for instructors and students alike. These assignable activities include:
• Building Vocabulary
• Learning through Art
• Connecting the Concepts
• Interpreting Data
• Mp3 audio Tutors
• Video Tutors
• Reading Questions
• Key Concept Questions

• Scientific Thinking Activities help students develop an understanding of how scientific research is conducted. Some of the featured topics include: 
• What Is the Role of Peer Review in the Process of Science?
• How Does “Citizen Science” Affect Scientific Data Collection? 
• Can Scientists Use Gene Expression Data to Personalize Cancer Treatment? 
• Is There a Genetic Basis for Adapting to Life at High Altitudes? 
• Do the Microorganisms in Our Digestive Tract Play a Role in Obesity? 
• Interpreting Data Activities help students practice basic skills associated with interpreting and analyzing data. Each activity builds from a lower to higher order of learning, with specific wrong-answer feedback designed to coach students along the way.
• NEW! Evaluating Science in the Media activities teach students to recognize validity, bias, purpose, and authority in everyday sources of information.
• NEW! Everyday Biology Videos briefly explore interesting and relevant biology topics that relate to concepts students are learning in class. These 20 videos, produced by the BBC, can be assigned in Mastering Biology with assessment questions.
• NEW! HHMI Short Films are documentary-quality movies from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute with explorations from the discovery of the double helix to evolution and include assignable questions.
• ABC News video clips were created in partnership with ABC News and cover a wide range of biological topics that are in the news to show students how science is connected to their lives.
• Current events articles from the New York Times are assignable and regularly updated to give instructors the opportunity to integrate current environmental topics into their course. The New York Times articles are updated twice a year with almost 50 new articles annually.
• Connecting the Concepts link new concepts with already mastered content and helps students understand.
• Video Field Trips allow students to observe everyday environmental problems and solutions, including wind power, invasive species, and campus sustainability.

Integrate Active Learning and Assessment

• NEW! Learning Catalytics “Try This” questions give instructors a resource of easy to assign in class active learning questions. Based on the in text “Try This” feature, these questions prompt students to interact with the figures from the textbook and practice their own active learning.
• UPDATED! Active Reading Guides are designed to aid students in getting the most out of their reading and are aimed at moving them from passive learning to active learning.
• Dynamic Study Modules provide students with multiple sets of questions with extensive feedback so that they can test, learn, and retest until they achieve mastery of the textbook material.
• Learning Catalytics™ helps generate class discussion, customize lectures, and promote peer-to-peer learning with real-time analytics. As a student response tool, Learning Catalytics uses students’ smartphones, tablets, or laptops to engage them in more interactive tasks and thinking.
• NEW! Ready-to-Go Teaching Modules in the Instructor Resources section help instructors efficiently make use of the available teaching tools for the toughest topics. Before-class assignments, in-class activities, and after-class assignments are provided for ease of use.
• The Instructor Exchange offered via the instructor resource area of Mastering Biology provides successful, class-tested active learning techniques and analogies from biology instructors around the nation, offering a springboard for quick ideas to create more compelling lectures. Co-author Kelly Hogan moderates contributions to the exchange.
• NEW! eText 2.0 is now available on smartphones, tablets, and computers, featuring seamlessly integrated videos and concept check questions. Features also include configurable reading settings, instructor and student note taking, highlighting, bookmarking and search. eText 2.0 mobile app offers offline access and can be downloaded for most iOS and Android phones/tablets from the Apple App Store or Google Play.

About the Book

Stay focused:

• A flexible modular format organized around central concepts paces student learning into manageable chunks and allows your syllabus to drive the course.
• The Big Ideas at the start of each chapter serve as a roadmap to students by highlighting the overarching set of concepts that each chapter is built upon.
• Numbered Central Concept Headings at the beginning of each module help students stay focused as they study
• Try This activities are active learning prompts that coach students to interact with the figures in their text to build understanding. New questions in Learning Catalytics allow instructors to turn these into in-class activities.
• End-of-module Concept Check questions allow students to self-check their understanding along the way

See Connections:

• NEW! A focus on the five major themes in biology is inspired by the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education report. These themes–Evolution, Organization, Information, Energy and Matter, and Interactions–are introduced in Chapter One and examples are highlighted throughout the text to illustrate applications of these themes in all chapters.
• UPDATED! Visualizing the Concept Modules visually walk students through tough topics. There are 8 new modules of this type in the 9th Edition. Videos accompanying a select set of Visualizing the Concept modules are assignable in MasteringBiology.
• NEW! Career photo essays at the start of each unit highlight connections between chapter contents and careers that relate to an undergraduate general biology course. This new feature is designed to demonstrate to students the vast array of career opportunities available to STEM students.
• High Interest Questions at the start of each chapter are designed to draw students in and spark curiosity about the chapter content. As the chapter unfolds, questions are further explored in Scientific Thinking or Evolution Connection Modules.
• Connection Modules in every chapter relate biology to students’ lives and the world outside the classroom. Each Connection Module shows students how the course material connects to a wide variety of issues.
• Evolution Connection Modules present concrete examples of the evidence for evolution within each chapter, providing a coherent theme for the study of life.

Think Scientifically:

• NEW! Visualizing the Data Figures present data in an infographic form and are marked by visualizing the data icons in the textbook. These nineteen figures provide students with a fresh approach to understanding concepts illustrated by graphs and numerical data.
• Scientific Thinking Modules emphasize the process of scientific inquiry and are called out with orange icons in every chapter.
• NEW! Scientific Thinking concept check questions conclude each Scientific Thinking Module and prompt students to focus on aspects of the process of science such as forming and testing of hypotheses, experimental design, variables and controls, and the evaluation and communication of scientific results.
• Scientifically accurate and up-to-date research ensures that you and your students have the most current information.
• End-of-chapter review questions better reflect best practices of scientific teaching with review questions organized according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.