Laboratory Manual Introductory Plant Biology Book

It's readable and does a good job of covering many different aspects of human physiology and relating them to both human health and current events. That said, it does an exceptionally poor job of articulating key concepts. My non-bio-major students (and I!) really struggled to identify general messages in each chapter, beyond the collection of specific biological facts.

As a result, my students found it difficult to absorb everything over the course of the semester. In retrospect, I would have benefited from learning to use the electronic teaching resources. The supplemental videos weren't terribly useful, but using the quiz modules and getting automatic scores and reports could have been quite valuable. In particular it would have facilitated more frequent and narrowly-focused quizes, which my students felt would have kept them on-task without overwhelming them.

But even more, I think my needs would have been better met by a more abstract textbook that (a) was bigger-picture and less detail-oriented and (b) emphasized more how students could investigate health topics as needed and apply that knowledge to real-world decisions (first-aid, behavior, insurance, policy).