Teaching Introductory Genetics to Agricultural Science Students

The objective of an introductory genetics course is to teach the basic principles of inheritance, and assist the students to develop a basic understanding of genetics and how it is involved in agricultural production, plant breeding, biotechnology, and in issues facing modern society. Since this course might be the only genetic course for many agricultural sciences undergraduate students, we tried to cover most subjects in introductory genetics by providing a solid background for students interested in taking further plant breeding, genetics, genomics and biotechnology courses. A working experience is provided every year to undergraduate student to learn about soybean reverse and forward genetics methods, mutation breeding and functional genomics. The impact of this experience was very beneficial to, the students’ career choices and the graduate program.