Hello, I agree with the points everyone has stated so far in support of Calculus. In an ideal world students would have the options calculus courses geared toward the environmental/life sciences rather than the traditionally taught ones. There are books that are oriented for this purpose (i.e. Neuhauser *Calculus for Biology and Medicine* https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Biology-Medicine-Life-Sciences/dp/0321644689). Just as many institutions offer applied statistics courses.
More and more of ecology and environmental biology requires modeling, statistics or both. My anecdotal evidence from teaching Ecology courses and environmental computer modeling courses is that students who have taken calculus (not required in either case) perform better in the population growth parts of an Ecology class and in computer modeling than students who have not had calculus. My guess is that when surveyed students would not say that they used calculus in either course, despite the benefits they had from a better understanding of derivatives, integration, and fitting functions. While I don't have data to back this up, it might be an interesting question which someone else has researched. Developing a quantitative methods course geared towards biology majors would give students the directly applicable skills to the major if done well. While I am someone who has used a significant amount of mathematics in my teaching and research and personally believe the more math the better, I understand students are limited in the time/money they have for taking courses. Therefore, I worry requiring students to take a quantitative methods class when they might have to take calculus and/or statistics anyway (for medical school, graduate school, etc.) means essentially requiring more courses either now or in the future for your majors. Kyle -- Dr. Kyle Ann Whittinghill Lecturer and Undergraduate Advisor Department of Geology and Environmental Science University of Pittsburgh 4107 O'Hara St. Pittsburgh, PA 15260-3332 Office Phone: 412-383-7052 Office: SRCC Room 216
