Very interesting if you want to learn about marine invertebrates. Terrestrial invertebrates are also covered but mostly in 3/16 chapters throughout the course. Great course to take with a friend to study with. Good if you love to explore areas with water and opportunities to find invertebrates.

This class focuses on the diversity of organisms that are not found within the vertebrata taxon. The class begins with basic chordates that are somewhat similar in development to humans and vertebrates and then progresses through many marine and terrestrial taxa including Nemerteans, Tardigrada, Arthropoda, Ctenophora, and Cnidaria. Students are evaluated based on their performance on Tophat, through labs, and through assessments such as 4 honorlock canvas exams and 2 Lab exams.

Dr. Meadows is very geeky and nerdy and shows her love for marine biology in this class. She is very nice and tries to make the course somewhat easy. However, there are no practice exams so you must make some guesses on what may be on the exams. Overall I found the exams in the average difficulty range as a student outside of the Biology/Marine Biology/Zoology department

Study any paper dissections you have long before any lab exams as the lab exams require you knowing lots of anatomy. In addition, make flashcards or some study guides to 100% memorize any and all taxonomy as the lab exams will trip you up and ask for Phylum, Subphylum, Class, subclass, Order, suborder, and any subsequent groups or names. Be wary of this class if you do not enjoy drawing. The labs all require many drawings, most requiring 3 drawings at least of organisms in a particular phylum before even beginning the lab. Each lab required an average of about 8 somewhat detailed drawings where you must label internal and external features of dissected organisms or ones found in provided videos.