AP Biology Unit 4

Big Idea:

Student Expectations:

Main Ideas

Big Idea 3: Information - Living systems store, retrieve, transmit and respond to information essential to life processes.

Big Idea 4: System - Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex properties.

Enduring Understanding

3.D: Cells communicate by generating, transmitting and receiving chemical signals.

4.C: Naturally occurring diversity among and between components within biological systems affects interactions with the environment

Essential Knowledge

3.D.1: Cell communication processes share common features that reflect a shared evolutionary history.

3.D.2: Cells communicate with each other through direct contact with other cells or from a distance via chemical signaling

3.D.3: Signal transduction pathways link signal reception with cellular response

3.D.4: Changes in signal transduction pathways can alter cellular response

4.C.1: Variation in molecular units provides cells with a wider range of functions.

Student Learning Targets:

An Introduction to Metabolism

• The key role of ATP in energy coupling.
• That enzymes work by lowering the energy of activation.
• The catalytic cycle of an enzyme that results in the production of a final product.
• The factors that influence the efficiency of enzymes.

Cell Communication

• The three stages of cell communication: reception, transduction, and response.
• How G-protein-coupled receptors receive cell signals and start transduction.
• How receptor tyrosine kinase receive cell signals and start transduction.
• How a phosphorylation cascade amplifies a cell signal during transduction.
• How a cell response in the nucleus turns on genes while in the cytoplasm it activates enzymes.
• What apoptosis means and why it is important to normal functioning of multicellular organisms.

The Cell Cycle

• The structure of the replicated chromosome.
• The stages of mitosis.
• The role of kinases and cyclin in the regulation of the cell cycle.

Cellular Energetics and Cellular Respiration: Harvesting Chemical Energy

• The difference between fermentation and cellular respiration.
• The role of glycolysis in oxidizing glucose to two molecules of pyruvate.
• The process that brings pyruvate form the cytosol into the mitochondria and introduces it into the citric acid cycle.
• How the process of chemiosmosis utilizes the electrons from NADH and FADH₂ to produce ATP.

Photosynthesis

• How photosystems convert solar energy to chemical energy.
• How linear electron flow in the light reactions results in the formation of ATP, NADPH, and O₂.
• How chemiosmosis generates ATP in the light reactions.
• How the Calvin cycle uses the energy molecules of the light reactions to produce G3P.
• The metabolic adaptation of C₄ and CAM plants to arid, dry regions.

Essential Questions:

• How does energy transfer form to be used within the cells of life?

Extra Information:

Adopted Textbook:

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