AP Biology Changed

Summary of First Semester – 18 Weeks

Unit

Topics

Assignments/Readings/Labs

Quizzes/Tests

Length

Chemistry

Thermodynamics
Molecules
Water
Carbon

Ch 1-5

Lab 1 – Osmosis/Diffusion
Lab 2 – Enzyme Catalysis
NCZoo Lab
Articles / Worksheets
Video Clips &/or PC-CD

Free-Response Questions taken from past AP Exams

Unit 1 Test

Term I

8 weeks

Cytology

Cell Structure
Membranes
Photosynthesis
Respiration
Cell Cycle

Ch 6-12

Lab 4 – Photosynthesis
Lab 5 – Respiration
Articles / Worksheets
Video Clips / PC-CD

F-R Questions taken from past AP Exams

Unit 2 Test

Practice AP Exam Covering the First 25%

Part I Molecules and Cells – 1 Week

Genetics

Mitosis / Meiosis
Mendel
Chromosomes
DNA
Mutations
Viruses
Biotechnology

Ch 13-21

Lab 3 – Mitosis/Meiosis
Lab 6 – DNA Transformation
Lab 7 – Genetics of Organisms
Articles / Worksheets
Video Clips / PC-CD

F-R Questions taken from past AP Exams

Unit 3 Test

Term II

8 weeks

Evolution

Origins
Mechanisms
Phylogeny
Systematics

Chapters 22-25

Lab 8 – Population Genetics (phylogenetic change over time)
NCZoo Lab
Articles / Worksheets
Video Clips / PC-CD

F-R Questions taken from past AP Exams

Unit 4 Test

Diversity

Prokaryotes
Eukaryotes
Plants
Animals
Vertebrates

Chapters 26-34

NCZoo Lab
Articles / Worksheets
Video Clips / PC-CD

F-R Questions taken from past AP Exams

Unit 5 Test

Practice AP Exam Covering the Second 25%
Part II Genetic Change and Diversity – 1 Week

Summary Second Semester – 18 Weeks
Unit	Topics	Assignments/Readings/Labs	Quizzes/Tests	Length
6	Plants Form Function Systems Adaptations	Chapters 35-39 Lab 9 – Transpiration NCZoo Lab Articles / Worksheets Video Clips / CD	F-R Questions taken from past AP Exams Unit 6 Test	Term III & Part of Term IV 10 weeks
7	Animals Form Function Systems Adaptations	Chapters 40-49 Lab 10 – Physiology of the Circulatory System Lab 11 – Animal Behavior NCZoo Lab Articles / Worksheets Video Clips / CD	F-R Questions taken from past AP Exams Unit 7 Test	Term III & Part of Term IV 10 weeks
8	Ecology Ecosystems Populations Interactions Interdependence Environmental Issues	Chapters 50-55 Lab 12 – Dissolved Oxygen & Aquatic Primary Productivity NCZoo Lab Articles / Worksheets Video Clips / CD	F-R Questions taken from past AP Exams Unit 8 Test	Term IV 6 Weeks
Practice AP Exam Covering the Last 50% Part III Organisms & Populations – 1 Week
Different Practice Exams & Reviews until the official AP Exam – 1 Week

* HOMEWORK EXPECTATIONS: You are expected to schedule your time throughout each unit. I recommend you use my instructions/article on "How and Why to Create a Condensed Memory OUTLINE". Please remember, you're not elementary students anymore, so we won't be spoon-feeding, or given constant teacher-generated busy work to do at home. Some courses, like Math and Chemistry, require a lot of "practice" problems homework. In contrast, a large part of Biology/Life Science requires the memorization of many terms/concepts along with learning to think Bio - logically (Greek = logikos).

- to read and understand the textbook and lab sections BEFORE each class
- to outline and condense your notes into manageable segments with memory cues
- to memorize your outlines well
- to meditate on and question the meaning and implications of everything covered
* Never believe anything without sufficient evidence (critical thinking / bio-logic) Proverbs 14:15; Hebrews 11:1

Bio-logikos Classroom Zoo / Rehab (brochure / Word doc)

NCZoo "Living Labs" - (30 Aquariums/Terrariums) (Over 40 Live Animals)
Remember, "Biology" [Greek = bio + logos] means the study of "Life", not dead specimens!
This also means the study of "nephesh" inter-relationships, especially humans in God's image.

Digital Microscopy QX3:
- Where to get a QX3 and why you'll love it
- What you can do with it and how to use it
- Photos and video clips of our class digital labs

Northlake Christian High School
Edline (For grades, assignment/tests calendar etc)

New pictures, class outlines, PowerPoint presentations, etc,
will be uploaded as the year progresses.

BIO-MATH Synergy: Please beware of its limitations . . .

In both psychology and biology, the non-physical “nephesh/psyche” (soul and its relationships) cannot be quantified like tangible, physical variables. Therefore, understanding the nephesh of a person or an animal requires intimate, relational knowledge of that particular species and even more, that individual creature.

The failure to take this crucial fact into account has historically led to reductionistic conclusions resulting in horrors like vivisection, abusive experimentation, evolutionary racism, and many other inhumane beliefs and policies. In this course, as with Honors Biology, I will help you master mathematical methods that can be appropriate, even vital integrations between biology and mathematics, such as:

* The Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
* Chi-Square Hypothesis Testing
* Genetic Probabilities, especially the improbable belief that mutations as a mechanism
could produce sufficient new DNA information to produce new "kinds" of organisms.
* As well as other Bio-math applications

"Dear Sid Galloway,
The College Board is pleased to announce that your Biology course is authorized to use the "AP ®" designation for the 2007-08 academic year. The College Board applauds and recognizes your efforts to provide your students with the academic rigor and college-level experience that is the promise of AP. I thank you for the time and effort you put into participating in the AP Course Audit. Sincerely, Executive Director, AP Program"

Disclaimer:

“Assumptions can be dangerous, especially in science. They usually start as the most plausible or comfortable interpretation of the available facts. But when their truth cannot be immediately tested and their flaws are not obvious, assumptions often graduate to articles of faith, and new observations are forced to fit them. Eventually, if the volume of troublesome information becomes unsustainable, the orthodoxy must collapse.” [Emphasis added in bold italics]

(John Mattick, PhD, professor of molecular biology at the University of Queensland and director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. “The Hidden Genetic Program of Complex Organisms”, Scientific American, October 2004, p. 61.)

Download PowerPoint2003 Viewer Download Adobe PDF File Viewer

Mr. Galloway's Personal Philosophy of Education (46 pages - a long download, Word Doc)

TEXTBOOK / Materials / Helpful Websites:

Core Textbook (BIOLOGY, 7th ed. by Campbell and Reece)

AP Biology Course Description
(Adobe PDF file - Requires a PDF Reader. Click here if you need a free version)

College Board AP Biology Information Website

College Board AP Teacher Qualification:
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/teachers_corner/46361.html
“There are no educational or professional background requirements for who can serve as an AP teacher. The College Board recognizes that there are many paths towards becoming an effective AP teacher, and the audit does not review anything about teachers beyond how they are demonstrating on their syllabi the inclusion of the course requirements or a viable alternative.”
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_bio.html
"This course is designed to be the equivalent of a college introductory biology course usually taken by biology majors during their first year. Some AP students, as college freshmen, are permitted to undertake upper-level courses in biology or to register for courses for which biology is a prerequisite. Other students may have fulfilled a basic requirement for a laboratory science course and will be able to undertake other courses to pursue their majors.

AP Biology should include the topics regularly covered in a college biology course for majors. The textbooks used for AP Biology should be those used by college biology majors and the labs done by AP students must be the equivalent of those done by college students.

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. 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 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 in an AP Biology course should be 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."

University of Georgia's AP Biology Teacher Help Website

This Univ. of GA website has a good deal of useful material, yet note its opening page emphasis on evolution. This is typical of modern biology, which pushes the philosophical hypotheses of macroevolution more and more each year. Evolutionary concepts now comprise over 20 % of an AP Biology curriculum (see the outline below). Below is the introductory quote from Charles Darwin on the Univ. of GA website. Sadly, truly logikos human "reason" is no longer the driving force of "origins / historical" science. Defense of dogma has replaced genuine "origins" science in the secular arena, and it is now presented as if it were the foundation of "observational" / "operational" science.

"We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our [human] reason permits us to discover it."
-- Charles Darwin

Please compare Darwin's quote to that of C. S. Lewis regarding the changing state of science:

‘Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared—the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’
C. S. Lewis in Miracles: A Preliminary Study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

Our Creator's Word about His creation is the true cornerstone of all knowledge, not the philosophy of survival of the fittest, violent competition, dysfunction, disease, and death.