AP Biology

AP Biology is a rigorous course designed to represent an introductory level collegiate general biology class. Students are expected to have taken pre-requisites such as Honors Biology and Chemistry.  All students will be given an opportunity to experience science as a process, through hands-on inquiry and experimentation, and practice problem-solving skills while learning to use sophisticated laboratory equipment. 

 

From the CollegeBoard website:

This course is structured around the four big ideas and the enduring understandings identified in the AP Biology Curriculum Framework. The course will focus on inquiry-based laboratory work and the use of the seven science practices in both lab and non-lab activities. Students who take an AP Biology course will develop advanced inquiry and reasoning skills, such as designing a plan for collecting data, analyzing data, applying mathematical routines, and connecting concepts in and across domains.  

The 4 Big Ideas are:
Big Idea 1: The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.
Big Idea 2: Biological systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, to reproduce and to maintain dynamic homeostasis.
Big Idea 3: Living systems store, retrieve, transmit and respond to information essential to life processes.
Big Idea 4: Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex properties.

 

The 7 Science Practices (SP) are:
SP 1. The student can use representations and models to communicate scientific phenomena and solve scientific problems.
SP 2. The student can use mathematics appropriately.
SP 3. The student can engage in scientific questioning to extend thinking or to guide investigations within the context of the AP course.
SP 4. The student can plan and implement data collection strategies appropriate to a particular scientific question.
SP 5. The student can perform data analysis and evaluation of evidence.
SP 6. The student can work with scientific explanations and theories.
SP 7. The student is able to connect and relate knowledge across various scales, concepts and representations in and across domains.

 

Support from parents and teachers are vital to the success of our students in this course, as well as to our Raider Goals of being Thinkers, Contributors, and Communicators.  Please contact me at [email protected] or leave a message at (626) 965-3448 x3277 and I will do my best to return your call or email as soon as possible.
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Assignments and other information will be posted onto Google Classroom. You can enroll yourself in the Google Classroom group for your specific class (classroom.google.com).