Spring 2027

Biology and Society, 1950 - Today

Examines the history of biology from 1950 to today, focusing on how scientific developments shape and are shaped by social issues, institutions, and technologies.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2020: 3.49 GPA, 72.5% A/AB (n=131 letter grades); Spring 2023: 3.33 GPA, 67.6% A/AB (n=142 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.28 GPA, 57.9% A/AB (n=95 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Develop an appreciation for the ways in which the institutions, practices, and ways of thinking associated with contemporary biology are specific to a particular place and time, and have changed over time

  • Identify and state the significance of key people and events in the recent history of biology

  • Understand key theoretical frameworks for describing interactions between biology and society, and be able to apply these frameworks to new empirical cases

  • Identify and evaluate the strength of the arguments and evidence used in an academic paper

  • Extrapolate complex arguments to new contexts and assess how new information would change the argument

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
HISTSCI 133

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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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

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2020: 3.49 GPA, 72.5% A/AB (n=131 letter grades); Spring 2023: 3.33 GPA, 67.6% A/AB (n=142 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.28 GPA, 57.9% A/AB (n=95 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Institutions, technologies, and practices in contemporary biology
  • Biological controversies including genetically modified plants
  • Intersections of life sciences with medical, environmental, and food security issues

Skills

  • Apply theoretical frameworks to analyze interactions between biology and society
  • Evaluate arguments and evidence in academic papers
  • Extrapolate arguments to new contexts and assess impact of new information

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2024— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

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 2024

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2024 · 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

1238 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

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

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

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "03e2a0bbf8fb87d9521ab156613a418d3c725eee39fc410cf16f65129020d0a3",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}