Biology At-A-Glance

The Department of Biology building houses offices, teaching laboratories, and research laboratories for faculty members, graduate and Honours students, and staff. There are 5 state-of-the-art teaching labs with specialized equipment where most of your biology labs will take place (some labs are in the field). Generous office space is available for graduate students, and shared office space for Honours students allowing for an engaging, connected research experience.

Acadia offers a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree with a biology major, a B.Sc. with Honours in biology, a B.Sc. with a double major (biology plus chemistry, physics, psychology, etc.), and a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Biology. Each degree has specific course requirements, and all have liberal hands-on instruction with small class sizes (10-90 students in most cases), and labs limited at 24 students.

Acadia is fortunate in its geographical location. The local diversity of habitats provides a strong basis for field-oriented course work, enabling the department to offer a good balance of outdoor and indoor laboratory experiences even in winter! Whole organism dissection is prevalent in many labs further enhanced by preserved specimens available from the E.C. Smith Herbarium (over 200,000 specimens including vascular plants, bryophytes, and fungi) and the Wildlife Museum (140,000 specimens with 4,500 mammals & birds and several hundred fish).

The department is fortunate to own property on Brier Island (Digby County) and Hemeon Head (Lunenburg County), and to operate the Richardson Field Station in Biology on Bon Portage Island (Shelburne County). The Richardson Field Station provides accommodations and laboratory facilities for both course work and research.