Spring 2027

Human/animal Relationships: Biological and Philosophical Issues

Interdisciplinary study of human-non-human animal relationships, covering biological needs, behavior, and personal/professional interactions.

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

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Patricia McConnell

Reading and attending lectures were not exactly monitored, but both were described as musts for the course.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explain concepts related to animal behavior from fields of biology including genetics,evolution, ethology, physiology and wildlife ecology.

  • Describe the process of domestication including possible ways the process could have begun and the evolutionary processes involved.

  • Identify and apply psychological and philosophical frameworks to topics of human and animal relationships.

  • Explain historical and cultural changes in human perceptions of other animals and beliefs about human obligations toward animals.

  • Consider current social controversies related to our relationship with animals, such as wild animals and the alteration of ecosystems in which they live or such as eating meat; and present and discuss these topics using objective and respectful dialogue.

  • Relate biological and philosophical concepts to own research.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
ZOOLOGY 335

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

PATRICIA MCCONNELL is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015. 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

Spring 2027

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
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Patricia McConnell

Professor McConnell was described as passionate and knowledgeable about animals, creating an engaging learning environment for students.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2023: 3.28 GPA, 68.0% A/AB (n=50 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.32 GPA, 63.2% A/AB (n=38 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.37 GPA, 64.2% A/AB (n=67 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Patricia McConnell

Reading and attending lectures were not exactly monitored, but both were described as musts for the course.

Past student reviews · Patricia McConnell

A student who had never taken a zoo or biology class before reported that getting an A was very possible.

Topics

  • Animal behavior in genetics, evolution, ethology, physiology, and wildlife ecology.
  • Domestication processes and evolutionary history.
  • Psychological and philosophical frameworks for human-animal relations.
  • Historical and cultural shifts in human perception of animals and moral obligations.

Skills

  • Explain animal behavior concepts across genetics, evolution, ethology, physiology, and wildlife ecology.
  • Describe the domestication process and its evolutionary origins.
  • Apply psychological and philosophical frameworks to human-animal relationship topics.
  • Present and discuss social controversies regarding animal relationships with objectivity and respect.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— 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 Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · 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

1316 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.

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
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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": "bed7469dc9f05347189528fd86016078f26e933dc03557abaa85f244a8e78f63",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}