Equine Science - Semester 2 - 18 Week High School Science Class

This course is an intermediate level, intense equine science course. Students are expected to have prior general knowledge of horses and a basic understanding of how horses move, know and be able to identify body parts and general health. 

This course is the SECOND semester of equine science. If a learner who has not taken the FIRST semester of equine science they may be lost in discussion. This course does build from the first semester course.

This course will be a good option for youth involved in 4H or FFA and/or participate on horse judging teams, hippology or horse quiz bowl. We do discuss many topics that are covered in these competitions.

I teach with a conversational style, encouraging learners to get engaged with the lesson, sharing thier knowledge and personal experience to develop a relationship with one another. This class is hands on, we will do regular projects and labs. 

This course will focus on Equine Breeding and Selection, Cell Structure, and Inherited Abnormalities.

This course will meet twice weekly, following in suite like the first semester of this course. 

week 1: intro to class, syllabus discussion and Breed Development
week 2: Applied Genetics - chromosomes, genes, heredity, environment definitions
week 3: Selection Characteristics and criteria
week 4: Pedigrees - ancestors and heritability
week 5: Pedigrees - relatives and progeny records 
week 6: Performance - objective vs. subjective records, reproduction
week 7: Conformation, Temperament, Intelligence, Trainability
week 8: Performance Selection Characteristics - race horses
week 9: Performance Selection Characteristics - hunter and jumper horses 
week 10: Performance Selection Characteristics - Stock horse, trail and show horses (project #1 - learners will develop their own breeding plan complete with stallion and mare of their choice based on desired characteristics)
week 11: The Cell - structure of inheritance, DNA, RNA, Karyotypes
week 12: The Cell - mitosis - LAB 
week 13: The Cell - meiosis - LAB
week 14: Inherited Abnormalities - conformation focusing on the head and neck
week 15: Inherited Abnormalities - conformation focusing on the limbs and body
week 16: Inherited Abnormalities - the eye and skin
week 17: Inherited Abnormalities - reproductive and digestive
week 18: Inherited Abnormalities - Nervous, respiratory, circulatory and blood

There will occassionally be a Kahoot test to check learners retention and to remind me if I need to better review or teach a specific topic.  There will also be regular projects and labs for learners to prepare what they have learned. 

We will regularly use playdough, yarn, wire, modeling clay - so please have those on hand as well as anything your learners like to use for notetaking... whether it be a notebook, sketch book or ipad, they are going to be encouraged to write/draw/screen shot.