designed by 
Shelly Peretz
Thornwood High School
17101 South Park
South Holland IL 60473
Web Institute for Teachers, Summer, 2003

 Introduction | Aim | Rationale | Goals and Objectives | Audience | Prerequisites | Subject Matter | Instructional Plan | Materials | Assessment and Evaluation | Appendices | Resources | Glossary

Introduction

This curriculum web is a website designed to support the teaching and learning in AP Biology. It includes pages containing instructions for students, informational text, images or other media, links to relevant resources, and various other tools to support learning.
 
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Aim

The AP Biology course is designed to be taken by students after the successful completion of a first course in high school biology and one in high school chemistry as well.  It aims to provide students with the conceptual framework, factual knowledge, and analytical skills necessary to deal critically with the rapidly changing science of biology. The AP Biology course is designed to be the equivalent of a college introductory biology course usually taken by biology majors during their first year. 

 
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Rationale

The Advanced Placement Program® is a cooperative educational endeavor between secondary schools and colleges and universities. Since its inception in 1955, the Program has provided motivated high school students with the opportunity to take college-level courses in a high school setting. Students who participate in the Program not only gain college-level skills, but in many cases they also earn college credit while they are still in high school. AP courses are taught by dedicated and enthusiastic high school teachers who follow course guidelines developed and published by the College Board.
 
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Goals and Objectives

The two main goals of AP Biology are to help students develop a conceptual framework for modern biology and to help students gain an appreciation of science as a process. The ongoing information explosion in biology makes these goals even more challenging. Primary emphasis is on developing an understanding of concepts rather than on memorizing terms and technical details. Essential to this conceptual understanding are the following:  a grasp of science as a process rather than as an accumulation of facts; personal experience in scientific inquiry; recognition of unifying themes that integrate the major topics of biology; and application of biological knowledge and critical thinking to environmental and social concerns.

•  Students will understand that cells are the structural and functional units of life; cellular processes are based on physical and chemical changes.

• Students will understand how hereditary events control the passage of structural and functional information from one generation to the next.

• Students will understand that the relationship of structure to function is a theme that is common to all organisms; the interactions of organisms with their environment is the major theme in ecology.

• Students will understand the processes of scientific inquiry to investigate questions, conduct experiments and solve problems.

In addition the following Illinois Science Standards/Benchmarks in Science are addressed:

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Audience

All students who are willing to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be given consideration for admission to AP courses.

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Prerequisites

The AP Biology is designed to be taken by students after the successful completion of a first course in high school biology and one in high school chemistry as well.
 
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Subject-Matter

AP Biology includes those topics regularly covered in a college biology course for majors. The college course in biology differs significantly from the usual first high school course in biology with respect to the kind of textbook used, the range and depth of topics covered, the kind of laboratory work done by students, and the time and effort required of students. 

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Instructional Plan

Laboratory experience must be included in all AP Biology courses.  One-fourth to one-third of the credit in most college introductory biology courses is derived from laboratory work. 

12 Recommended Biology Laboratories

Laboratory Topic

1. Diffusion and Osmosis
2. Enzyme Catalysis
3. Mitosis and Meiosis
4. Plant Pigments and Photosynthesis
5. Cell Respiration
6. Molecular Biology
7. Genetics of Organisms
8. Population Genetics and Evolution
9. Transpiration
10. Physiology of the Circulatory System
11. Animal Behavior
12. Dissolved Oxygen and Aquatic Primary Productivity

The following topic outline indicates the percentage of the course and exam devoted to each major subset of biology.

1. Molecules and Cells
2. Heredity and Evolution
3. Organisms and Populations

I. Molecules and Cells (25%)

A. Chemistry of Life (7%)

1. Water
2. Organic molecules in organisms
3. Free energy changes
4. Enzymes

B. Cells (10%)

1. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells
2. Membranes
3. Subcellular organization
4. Cell cycle and its regulation

C. Cellular Energetics (8%)

1. Coupled reactions
2. Fermentation and cellular respiration
3. Photosynthesis

II. Heredity and Evolution (25%)

A. Heredity (8%)

1. Meiosis and gametogenesis
2. Eukaryotic chromosomes
3. Inheritance patterns

B. Molecular Genetics (9%)

1. RNA and DNA structure and function
2. Gene regulation
3. Mutation
4. Viral structure and replication
5. Nucleic acid technology and applications

C. Evolutionary Biology (8%)

1. Early evolution of life
2. Evidence for evolution
3. Mechanisms of evolution

III. Organisms and Populations (50%)

A. Diversity of Organisms (8%)

1. Evolutionary patterns
2. Survey of the diversity of life
3. Phylogenetic classification
4. Evolutionary relationships

B. Structure and Function of Plants and Animals (32%)

1. Reproduction, growth, and development
2. Structural, physiological, and behavioral adaptations
3. Response to the environment

C. Ecology (10%)

1. Population dynamics
2. Communities and ecosystems
3. Global issues

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Materials

AP Biology Course Description

AP Biology Laboratory Manual for Students

Textbook: Mader, Sylvia S. Inquiry into Life, 10th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 2003
Study Guide: Mader, Sylvia S. Inquiry into Life, 10th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 2003
Companion website at http://www.mhhe.com/maderinquiry10

AP Biology Great Books List

AP Biology Curriculum Maps [Term 1] [Term 2] [Term 3] [Term 4]

Biology (Cliffs AP) -- Phillip E. Pack (Author) might be a useful resource for those of you that are very interested in taking the AP Biology Test on May 9, 2005!!!

 

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Students may be asked to demonstrate their knowledge through:

 
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Appendices

Implementation Guide - An implementation plan is a written document (a Word document or a web page) that addresses the issues raised in the Implementing your WebQuest or Implementing your Curriculum Web modules.

Resources

The APBioWiki. is an integral part of this course. It's a place in which we will build a common knowledge base about AP biology. Wikis are persistent, so, it's a way to pass knowledge from one year's offering of the course to the next as well as to interested viewers in the wider world outside the class.

What's a wiki? A wiki is a system for creating hyperlinked documents that are open to being revised by all participants. That might sound chaotic, but it's really a powerful idea for knowledge management. To get an idea of what a wiki is, take a look at Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia with tens of thousands of co-authors. Wikipedia has extensive coverage of biology, but essential to your conceptual understanding are the following: a grasp of science as a process rather than an accumulation of facts; personal experience in scientific inquiry; recognition of unifying themes that integrate the major topics of biology; and application of biological knowledge and critical to environmental and social concerns.

We'll be doing something similar to Wikipedia but narrowly focused on the domain of this course.

This WebQuest is based on the EDTEC 670 Educational Games Wiki, an evolving micropedia about educational games and simulations. The assignment is described at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec670/assignments/wiki.htm.

Blogs and Wikis as WebQuest tasks Thanks again, to Bernie Dodge for taking my teaching and learning one step beyond.

Wikis allow open editing. Anyone can edit anyone else's writing, or undo a previous edit. This leads to a shared ownership of the collected work. To experience this, you can add an entry to Wikipedia or set up your own free wikispace on SeedWiki. If you have sufficient geek experience you can install your own wiki software on a server running Linux or Mac OS X. Most are open source (free!).

The wiki site uses PmWiki software. Here are some pages you might find useful.

• PmWiki documentation is available at PmWiki.DocumentationIndex.
• What is the WikiWikiWeb?
• TipsForEditing and TextFormattingRules describe how to create pages in PmWiki.
• You can practice editing pages in the WikiSandbox.

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Glossary

Wiki - A wiki is a system for creating hyperlinked documents that are open to being revised by all participants. That might sound chaotic, but it's really a powerful idea for knowledge management.

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