Instructor: Dr. Angela Kostenko, B.S Biology, Ph.D. Cell and Molecular Biology

Location: Room 114

Email: akostenko@pointpleasant.k12.nj.us

Course Website: https://sites.google.com/site/sciencewithdrkostenko/Home/ap-biology-class

Course Description:

This is a full-year introductory biology course usually taken by biology majors during their first year of college. The course is built around the enduring understandings within four big ideas in biology, and will provide a basis for students to develop a deep conceptual understanding as well as opportunities to integrate biological knowledge and science practices through inquiry-based activities and laboratory investigations.

Upon successful completion of this course, students may receive college credit with a qualifying score on the AP exam from the college they plan to attend. (Note: Not all colleges accept the same exam scores, please check with your future college choices to ensure credit).

AP Biology is a challenging and difficult class, but with hard work and commitment, many students do well. There are many tools and resources available to help you. It is up to you to take advantage of them and do your best to succeed. I am committed to helping you be as successful as you choose to be, so please do not hesitate to come in or contact me for any questions, concerns or assistance.

Course Content:

AP Biology is structured around four big ideas, the enduring understandings within the big ideas and the essential knowledge within the enduring understandings.

The Big Ideas:

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, reproduce and 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 will be given a copy of the big ideas and enduring understandings to self-monitor mastery of these major organizing tools. The big ideas and enduring understandings will also be posted in the room. As connections are made across big ideas, a line will join the related enduring understandings, visually building a web of relatedness as the course progresses. The learning objectives will be used as a guide to build the rest of the class discussions, not as a checklist to be marked off through the year, but as a way to help students learn a focused amount of biological content with the use of specific scientific process skills. Skills will be practiced every day, not necessarily all skills every day, but each day at least one skill will be used to introduce the biological content students study.

Connections: The big ideas are interrelated, and they will not be taught in isolation. The course will connect the enduring understandings from one big idea with those of the others wherever practical. Students will maintain a curricular map of the big ideas and enduring understanding showing connections as they are made by the students themselves.

Examples of the types of connections to be made throughout the course:

Big idea 1 and 3:

EU 1.B: Organisms are linked by lines of descent from common ancestry.

EU 3.A: Heritable information provides for continuity of life.

DNA and RNA are carriers of genetic information through transcription, translation and replication. (LO 1.15) Students will model information flow in a kinesthetic activity and discuss the similarities in the process among different domains. DNA replication ensures continuity of hereditary information. (LO 3.3) (This is an example of a student activity that will connect enduring understandings between different big ideas and is an example of what students will do throughout the course).

3B: Big idea 1, 2 and 4:

EU 1.B: Organisms are linked by lines of descent from common ancestry.

EU 2.B: Growth, reproduction, and dynamic homeostasis require that cells create and maintain internal environments that are different from their external environments.

EU 4.1: Interaction within biological systems lead to complex properties.

Electron Transport Chain (ETC) and chemiosmosis kinesthetic activity. Students build an inner mitochondrial membrane out of a variety of

materials and identify the membrane as a feature allowing separation within the cell. Students explain and justify how this separation is achieved in prokaryotes to generate a proton gradient, and they will present the evolutionary connections across domains through a BLAST search for proteins in the ETC.

3C: Big idea 1 and 3:

EU 1.A: Change in the genetic makeup of a population over time is evolution.

EU 3.A: Heritable information provides for continuity of life.

Students will participate in a Hardy-Weinberg activity where they calculate allelic frequency change.

These alleles will be connected to DNA and related back to the evolutionary history of the organisms being studied.

In a second part of this activity, students will investigate the role of environmental change in the changing genetic make-up of a population.

The science practices and the learning objectives are used throughout the course. All activities and class work will be connected to at least one learning objective that will be clearly communicated to students so they can see the science practices and learning objectives as the framework around which the learning of the course takes place. The science practices and learning objectives will also be addressed in classroom activities and projects external to the formal lab investigations. Representative examples of activities are below:

4A: Students will participate in a Hardy-Weinberg simulation as a class activity. Within this activity, students will make predictions and test them using mathematical models to study population genetics. (LO 1.6)

· Students will chose several organisms to investigate some aspect of their evolutionary relatedness. Students will narrow down an appropriate, under-explored question about the organism of their choice through research, and develop testable hypotheses. Students will share research results. (LO 1.16)

4B: Students will compare cells in different domains with regard to internal membranes and their function. Students will extend this analysis to an examination and application of scientific explanations in endosymbiont theory. (LO 2.13)

• Students will make short movies showing the relationship between molecular events and global cycles such as between photosynthesis/respiration and global carbon cycles. (LO 2.9)

4C: Students will work with models demonstrating the immune system, digestive system, action potential, action at the nephron, working of the sarcomere, and cellular communication, which allow students to problem solve as they change conditions within the model. Students will model the effect of change (for example disease or drugs) and communicate the results predicted due to the change. (LO 3.36)

• Students will select and read an article in a scientific journal on a medical procedure, device, drug trial, or similar event. Students will statistically analyze and evaluate the data and report on the findings. (LO 3.37)

4D: Students will identify, explain and justify how intracellular structures interact with each other, such as rough endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi apparatus, or mitochondria and chloroplasts in plants, or the DNA inside the nucleus and the ribosomes outside the nucleus. (LO 4.18)

Social and Ethical Concerns:

It is vitally important that students connect their classroom knowledge to socially important issues. The course will allow students to learn about and discuss many issues in a variety of formats. Issues will be discussed in a class setting, both live and electronically through such programs as a Moodle forum, and students may research and report on a current topic that has social or ethical issues associated with it. Since the goal will be to discuss a timely event, the list below should be seen as illustrative as new issues continually appear.

•Stem Cell Research (Big idea 3)

•Global Warming (Big idea 4)

•Antibiotic Resistance and the Problems with Improper Antibiotic Use (Big idea 1)

•Genetically Modified Food (Big idea 3) •The Use of Genetic Information (Big idea 3)

Laboratory Component:

Students will be given the opportunity to engage in student-directed laboratory investigations throughout the course for a minimum of 25% of instructional time. These labs will be inquiry based, student-directed investigations. Students will conduct a minimum of eight inquiry-based investigations (two per big idea spread throughout the course). Additional labs and activities will be conducted to deepen students’ conceptual understanding and to reinforce the application of science practices within a hands-on, discovery-based environment. Students will be given the opportunity to develop, record and communicate the results of their laboratory investigations.

Science Practices in AP Biology:

1. The student can use representations and models to communicate scientific phenomena and solve scientific problems.

2. The student can use mathematics appropriately.

3. The student can engage in scientific questioning to extend thinking or to guide investigations within the context of the AP course.

4. The student can plan and implement data collection strategies appropriate to a particular scientific question.

5. The student can perform data analysis and evaluation of evidence.

6. The student can work with scientific explanations and theories.

7. The student is able to connect and relate knowledge across various scales, concepts and representations in and across domains.

Students will be able to apply the science practices throughout their laboratory work. Many of the science practices will be used in all of the student-directed laboratory and field investigations, however, some science practices will be emphasized to a greater degree than others in each particular investigation. The descriptions below summarize the student inquiry portion of the investigation. Additional prescribed activities supplement the student inquiry.

Big idea 1: Evolution

· BLAST Activity: Students use NCBI to compare DNA and protein sequences for organisms to test student-generated hypotheses on their relatedness.

· Hardy-Weinberg: Spreadsheet development to investigate factors affecting Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium.

Big idea 2: Cellular Processes; Energy and Matter

· Cellular Respiration: Students investigate some aspect of cellular respiration in organisms.

· Photosynthesis Students investigate photosynthetic rate under a variety of student-selected conditions.

· Diffusion/Osmosis: Students investigate diffusion and osmosis in model systems and in plant tissue.

Big idea 3: Genetics and Information Transfer

· Fruit Fly Genetics: we will examine patterns of inheritance in drosophila as a model system

· Bacterial Transformation: Students investigate bacterial transformation. Restriction Enzyme Analysis: Students investigate restriction enzyme analysis.

Big idea 4: Interactions

· Energy Dynamics: Students develop and analyze model systems that describe energy flow.

· Meal Worm Behavior: Students investigate chemotaxis in fruit flies.

· Transpiration: Students investigate the movement of water through plants in a model system.

· Enzyme Investigation: In an open inquiry lab, students will investigate and quantify factors that affect enzyme action.

Communication:

Students will maintain a laboratory notebook and a portfolio throughout the course. In addition to the laboratory notebook, students will communicate to others in formats such as group presentations, PowerPoint presentations, poster sessions, and written reports. Communication tools are not only for the laboratory experiences, but represent examples of the collaboration, reflection, and articulation seen in the course as a whole. Students will use this collection of their work over time and reflect on the changes they can see in the quality or substance of their work through the year as they prepare to move into college courses and research experiences in the future. A key feature in the portfolio will be the requirement for student self-reflection in terms of the science practice skills that they have developed throughout the year.

Required Texts:

(issued by the school for the length of the course and must be returned in unmarked, good condition)

• Reece, Jane B., et al. Campbell Biology (7th Edition). San Francisco: Pearson Education, 2009. Print.

• Holtzclaw and Holtzclaw. Test Prep Series for AP Biology. Pearson Education, 2015. Print.

Additional Materials and Equipment:

• Laboratory notebook (composition) – must be brought to class on lab days

• Recommended: notebook (binder), pen, pencil, calculator

Additional Course Policies:

Assignments:

Students will be regularly assigned homework, in-class activities, lab exercises and reports, quizzes, and exams (take-home and in-class). Student expectations are high for this course. You should plan to study 1-2 hours outside of class for every hour in class. We will cover multiple chapters per week and will have multiple choice and essay exams on a regular basis. Assignments will be due as indicated by the instructor.

Grades:

· Your percentage grade will be based on how many points you earn out of how many total points are available each marking period.

YOUR POINTS / TOTAL POINTS = YOUR GRADE

· Points will come from homework, quizzes, in-class assignments/activities, lab reports, tests, and participation (in the form of do-now activities).

· There will be random open notes tests. Take advantage of this opportunity and KEEP A GOOD NOTEBOOK.

· There will be extra credit opportunities. Take advantage of them.

· Assignments will NOT be curved. Graded assignments will be returned within one week from when it was collected.

· Exam Re-Grades: If, after consulting the key for your exam, you lost credit due to (1) a correct answer that was marked wrong, or (2) the answer you chose can be justified by content explicitly detailed in your Campbell Biology textbook, then please discuss this issue with me within one week of the date of the exam being returned to you to receive additional credit.

Student Success:

• Doing the reading assigned for each class before coming to class is necessary to benefit from what we do in class. The course assignments page will indicate the dates by which reading assignments should be completed before class.

• Lecture notes and reading guides that accompany the content in your Biology textbook will be available on the course website.

Classroom Rules:

• Turn off cell phones and mp3 players during class.

• All policies set forth in the Student Handbook must be adhered to.

• All policies set forth on the course website must be adhered to.

• Safety is a primary concern and all students must comply with the Laboratory Safety Contract.