Introduction

Biology of Animals & Plants

Online Text

Welcome to an experiment.  You are going to be a subject in an ongoing test of what may be a common feature of courses in the future:  textbooks that have been written particularly for online, as opposed to print books reformatted for a computer screen.  Originally written simply, with external links rather than internal fanciness, weve preserved the simplicity to make the text available over the weak connections and small screens.  External links still expand and illustrate the text, but are not loaded with each page.  What this online book also lacks is a price. 

The older version of the course mentioned above used a special edition of Biology - Understanding Life by Sandra Alters.  Some of the organization here may reflect that, although the information in this book has been gathered from many sources.  The book in its current form is really based upon it at all - it just covers many of the same topics.

 USING THE ONLINE TEXTBOOK

You may want to bookmark, using that option in your browser, to save your place according to which chapter and section (each page has internal section bookmarks, reachable from the list of topics at the end of the page) you may be reading, or you may just want to bookmark the Table of Contents / Site Map and find your place from there each time.  You probably dont want to bookmark this particular page - once youve read the introduction, theres not much point to coming back...

The text of the online book will follow class material from a "classic" approach to basic biology, expanding on it somewhat and connecting it to links from around the internet - information sources, further information, videos, sometimes just pictures, anything that should help explain and expand what is being covered.  Please report any "dead" links (but keep in mind that not all dead links are permanently gone) to the e-mail link at the bottom of each page.

The links are meant to take the place of what would be captioned pictures, charts, graphs, and tables in a bound book (as well as other slants on the text material)  - the links are there to help you understand the text!  Go take a look - they will open in separate windows or tabs, so you wont lose your place in the text by exploring them.

Years from now, when your children or grandchildren are reading their online texts, you can tell them that you worked from one of the first basic-information online textbooks ever written!  It wont quite be like having ridden with the Wright Brothers, but it might be a fun fact to tell.

GO ON TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS / 
SITE MAP