Designing a Natural Sciences Course
CoreFSU Natural Sciences courses emphasize foundational scientific principles and help students become effective interpreters of scientific results and critical analysts of claims about the natural world.
- Pose questions or hypotheses based on scientific principles.
- Use appropriate scientific methods and evidence to evaluate claims or theoretical arguments about the natural world.
- Analyze and interpret research results using appropriate methods.
The course proposal in Coursedog must reflect the following information:
- FSU Requirements: Natural Sciences courses help students become effective interpreters of scientific results and critical analysts of claims about the natural world. The course objectives, course materials, activities, topics, and grading criteria should reflect how students will achieve this outcome.
- The objective-assessment table field in Coursedog should illustrate how students will be assessed on their achievement of the Natural Sciences (and other requested or approved CoreFSU area) student learning objectives.
- Board of Governors Requirements for Natural Sciences Courses: Afford students the ability to critically examine and evaluate the principles of the scientific method, model construction, and use the scientific method to explain natural experiences and phenomena.
Note: General Education courses must be offered at a level of 1000 or 2000. Only college-level courses (1000 or higher) are approved for the CoreFSU curriculum.
There are two components of required syllabus language:
- Statements approved by the Faculty Senate, and
- Statements for each CoreFSU designation the course is certified for
Faculty Senate required syllabus language:
All syllabi are required to include the syllabus language statements approved by the FSU Faculty Senate, available at https://facsenate.fsu.edu/Curriculum-Resources/syllabus-language.
CoreFSU required syllabus language:
The following statement can either be 1) adapted specifically to the course content, or 2) pasted verbatim into the syllabus. In either case, the meaning of the language should be clearly communicated to students.
This course has been approved to meet FSU’s CoreFSU Natural Sciences requirement and helps you become an effective interpreter of scientific results and a critical analyst of claims about the natural world.
By the end of this course, students will:
- Pose questions or hypotheses based on scientific principles.
- Use appropriate scientific methods and evidence to evaluate claims or theoretical arguments about the natural world.
- Analyze and interpret research results using appropriate methods.
For laboratory (L) or combined lecture/laboratory (C) courses:
As required by Florida State University, the student must earn a course grade of “C–” or higher in order to meet the CoreFSU 1-credit laboratory requirement.
Please visit the "Faculty" section of the FAQ for restrictions on which CoreFSU designations a course can carry.
Please visit the "Faculty" section of the FAQ for restrictions on credit hours for CoreFSU courses.
- Faculty may contact UGS-CoreFSU@fsu.edu with any questions about CoreFSU course design, as well as questions about using Coursedog to submit course proposals for CoreFSU approval.
- You may also browse the FAQ for commonly asked questions and answers.