The AP Biology course is designed to offer students a solid foundation in introductory college-level biology. During the year, we will cover all of the topics within the College Board’s revised AP Biology curriculum and prepare students for the AP Biology exam in the spring.

All students need an opportunity to experience science as a process and not just learn biology as a collection of unrelated facts. Science is a way of knowing. Therefore, the process of inquiry in science and developing critical thinking skills are the most important parts of this course. The new revised Advanced Placement Biology course shifts from a traditional teacher-directed, “content coverage” model of instruction to one that focuses on helping students gain enduring understandings of biological concepts and the scientific evidence that supports them. This approach enables students to spend more time understanding biological concepts while developing reasoning skills essential to the science practices used throughout their study of biology.

At the end of the course, students will have an awareness of the integration of other sciences in the study of biology, understand how the species to which we belong is similar to, yet different from, other species, and be knowledgeable and responsible citizens in understanding biological issues that could potentially impact their lives. The AP course is structured around four central themes that are known as the four big ideas. These big ideas are as follows:

• 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

"Students have a lot of independence, basic notes in Schoology and reading at home"

"Labs and lessons are engaging"

"Don't procrastinate on minor assignments because that helps with being successful on major assignments"

We do our best to make every class day interesting and meaningful. We do a wide variety of activities including hands-on demonstrations, interactive lectures, problem solving exercises, and labs.