Spring 2027

The Biology and Appreciation of Companion Animals

Systematic coverage of the biology, care, health, and legal/economic aspects of animals kept as human social companions, including birds.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Ron Kean4.1/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Ron Kean

Ron Kean's assessment included discussion posts, Top Hat in lectures, and tests that required remembering a lot of lecture material. One student reported needing to attend every lecture to do well.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Recognize a broad range of types of companion animals and identify some unique characteristics of each

  • Characterize the basic biology of most companion animals, including health, nutrition, reproduction, etc

  • Summarize the basic requirements of care and husbandry for a variety of companion animals

  • Identify differences in the biology and requirements of various types of companion animals.

  • Identify current topics regarding companion animals.

  • Characterize some ethical issues associated with animal ownership, care, and use.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ANSCI 200

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

Ron Kean

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.19/5 from 99 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 4.2/5 raw quality · 2.3/5 difficulty · 33 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Ron Kean

Ron Kean’s course was lecture-heavy, and students emphasized that exams were difficult if they missed lectures because materials were not posted online. Grading relied on discussion posts, clicker responses, and tests with significant content. Students found the material engaging and manageable with preparation, though some noted the lectures could be dry.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1500

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Ron Kean

Ron Kean's lectures were described as fun, while one student found the course enjoyable after taking it for an easier bio credit and another found exams lecture-heavy as a non-stem major.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.28 GPA, 61.5% A/AB (n=117 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.16 GPA, 57.4% A/AB (n=129 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.31 GPA, 63.0% A/AB (n=138 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Ron Kean

Ron Kean's assessment included discussion posts, Top Hat in lectures, and tests that required remembering a lot of lecture material. One student reported needing to attend every lecture to do well.

Past student reviews · Ron Kean

One student found classes mostly engaging, while another found them always interesting and said Ron was responsive to emails.

Topics

  • Classification, nutrition, environment, reproduction, health, law, and economics of companion animals
  • Ethical issues in animal ownership, care, and use

Skills

  • Characterize basic biology of companion animals including health, nutrition, and reproduction
  • Summarize care and husbandry requirements for various companion animals
  • Understand legal aspects and economics of companion animals and supportive organizations

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.15 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
ANSCI 200 · Spring 2027

The Biology and Appreciation of Companion Animals

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:604:011843",
    "course_id": "ANSCI 200",
    "course_uid": "course_651307dd0cc683935d8a7bed",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "011843",
    "source_subject_id": "604",
    "title": "The Biology and Appreciation of Companion Animals",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "94df8839cc86d7035928c087549bc8fe6bc21893d79d383cf50e216b58377afa",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}