Welcome to AP Biology

We will use this blog throughout the summer and the school year as an extension of our classroom learning experience.  This is a place for us to share thoughts, information, photographs, and questions.   When posting on the blog please be respectful, courteous, and appropriate.  Please do not use acronyms or abbreviations like you are on the Twitter Machine or MyFace.  I expect you to write in complete sentences and provide meaningful, thought provoking contributions to this page.   Remember that this is an extension of our classroom and you are representating our school.

AP Biology is an exciting, challenging, and rigorous course, with a great deal of independent work.  The majority of outside work entails reading, note taking, and studying.  There will be some essay writing assignments along with lab work assignments.  Be prepared to work hard, but most importantly to learn Biology in much greater detail than in your first course.  The most important qualities you must possess and utilize to be successful are diligence and organization (especially of your time).  You will be well prepared for the AP Biology Exam in May if you thoroughly do the work asked of you. 

You are all guinea pigs in two experiments this year.  You are the first students to post to this blog and you will be the first students of the new AP Biology Curriculum. 

According to the College Board, "The revised AP Biology course is shifting from a traditional “content coverage” model of instruction to one that focuses on enduring, conceptual understandings and the content that supports them. This approach will enable students to spend less time on factual recall and more time on inquiry-based learning of essential concepts, and will help them develop the reasoning skills necessary to engage in the science practices used throughout their study of AP Biology.   The result will be readiness for the study of advanced topics in subsequent college courses — a goal of every AP course."

The key concepts and related content that define the revised AP Biology course and exam are organized around a few underlying principles called the big ideas, which encompass the core scientific principles, theories and processes governing living organisms and biological systems.

v  FOUR BIG IDEAS  v

v  Big Idea 1 – The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.

v  Big Idea 2 – Biological Systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, to reproduce, and to maintain homeostasis.

v  Big Idea 3 – Living systems store, retrieve, transmit and respond to information essential to life processes.

v  Big Idea 4 – Biological systems interact, and these systems are their interactions possess complex properties