Fall 2026

Bees, Trees, Germs, and Genes: a History of Biology

A history of biology course examining classic texts and game-changers from agriculture to molecular biology within scientific and social contexts.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 5

Historical reviews of Lynn Nyhart: The course required significant reading, weekly quizzes with tricky questions, discussion posts, and a final paper, demanding careful note-taking and time management.

Grade history

average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
HISTORY/HISTSCI/MEDHIST 132

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Fall 2026

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Lynn Nyhart’s historical reviews present conflicting views on her teaching style. Some students found her lectures difficult to follow and the content challenging, while others described her as caring and invested in student well-being. Both perspectives highlight the course's heavy reading load and specific quiz requirements.

LYNN K. NYHART is recorded teaching in Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

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

Calendar & sections

Fall 2026

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

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

Meeting source records

No records available.

Student experience

the class

Historical reviews of Lynn Nyhart: Lynn Nyhart’s past sections featured interesting content but were criticized for difficult, specific quizzes and lectures that were hard to follow, particularly for freshmen.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2019: 3.42 GPA, 73.5% A/AB (n=200 letter grades); Fall 2020: 3.43 GPA, 74.2% A/AB (n=198 letter grades); Spring 2023: 3.45 GPA, 75.0% A/AB (n=64 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Historical reviews of Lynn Nyhart: The course required significant reading, weekly quizzes with tricky questions, discussion posts, and a final paper, demanding careful note-taking and time management.

Historical reviews of Lynn Nyhart: Reviewers noted Nyhart was caring and invested in student well-being, offering extra credit and dropping low quiz scores, though some found the workload overwhelming.

Topics

  • Agriculture and natural history
  • Biomedicine and molecular biology
  • Eighteenth-century scientific traditions
  • Scientific and social contexts of biology

Skills

  • Contextual analysis of scientific texts and developments
  • Understanding the interplay of competing scientific paradigms

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2023— not enough history to project Fall 2026.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2023

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2023 · 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

1188 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.

Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Model outputs & technical records
nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Model & dataset provenance
{
  "model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
  "model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
  "task_version": "14",
  "output_id": "669f8c2bd021db147218b4c742a4cb221d9595499130b1cf4271f64aa2b56674",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}