Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Identify the new traits that first appear in tracheophytesDiscuss the importance of adaptations to life on landDescribe the classes of seedless tracheophytesDescribe the lifecycle of a fernExplain the role of seedless vascular plants in the ecosystem

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Define water potential and explain how it is influenced by solutes, pressure, gravity, and the matric potentialDescribe how water potential, evapotranspiration, and stomatal regulation influence how water is transported in plantsExplain how photosynthates are transported in plants

Statewide dual credit (SDC) classes are college-level courses taught at the high-school level by trained high-school teachers. All SDC courses culminate in a challenge exam which is used to assess mastery of the postsecondary-level learning objectives. Students who meet or exceed the exam ‘cut score’ receive college credit that can be applied to any Tennessee public postsecondary institution. The SDC Introduction to Plant Science course includes the following content.introduction to basic plant forms, functions, reproduction and propagation, soils and mediums, plant nutrition, and plant injuries and controldemonstration of proper Integrated Pest Management practices and PPE usageidentification of plant classifications and uses with attention to nursery production and controlled environment production,discussion on the impact of plants and horticulture on people

xylem (blue) carries water from the roots upwards phloem (orange) carries products of photosynthesis from the place of their origin (source) to organs where they are needed (roots, storage organs, flowers, fruits – sink); note that e.g. the storage organs may be source and leaves may be sink at the beginning of the growing seasonNefronus, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Did you have an idea for improving this content? We’d love your input.

Hank introduces us to one of the most diverse and important families in the tree of life - the vascular plants. These plants have found tremendous success and their secret is also their defining trait: conductive tissues that can take food and water from one part of a plant to another part. Though it sounds simple, the ability to move nutrients and water from one part of an organism to another was an evolutionary breakthrough for vascular plants, allowing them to grow exponentially larger, store food for lean times, and develop features that allowed them to spread farther and faster. Plants dominated the earth long before animals even showed up, and even today hold the world records for the largest, most massive, and oldest organisms on the planet.

Chapters:
1) 3 Tissue Types
2) Primary Growth
3) Secondary Growth
4) Dermal Tissue
a) Epidermis
5) Parenchyma Cells
6) Vascular Tissue
7) Xylem
8) Collenchyma
9) Sclerenchyma
10) Ground Tissue
a) Mesophyll
b) Photosynthesis
11) Phloem