Advanced Placement Biology/Honors Biology II

Jesse C. Carson High School

Allyson Hunter

                  The Advanced Placement (AP) Biology at Jesse C. CarsonHigh School is an intensive and rigorous course taken by Juniors and Seniors.  These students must bewilling to work hard in class and be willing to devote six hours of outsidestudy and preparation time for the class each week. AP Biology is acollege-level course and will betreated as such.

                   APBiology will consist of First Semester Biology II and Second Semester APBiology.  The class will run thewhole year.  This may seem to beample time to complete the course requirements, but we will be challenged tocover all of the required material in the upcoming year.  Many students will be involved inextracurricular activities and may be taking other AP courses.  I am going to try and be mindful ofthis and remind myself that AP Biology is not the only course that they may be taking. 

   This course will use the text Biology by Campbell and Reese, 5th edition in class.  They will also be assigned the text Biology by Starr and Taggart for use at home.  Many other widely used texts are kept in my professional library and are available to student use as well.

                  A variety of teaching methods are utilized, including lecture/discussion, student presentations, demonstrations, critical thinking exercises, and laboratory investigations.  Audio-visual aids will beincorporated when applicable. Examples include short videos, PowerPoint presentations, laser disksegments, internet sites, and computer simulations.  Some material is self-taught with a follow-upquestion/answer period and written assignments such as take-home essays.

                  Tests are fashioned after the AP test.  There is always a multiple choice section and at leastone essay, usually two.  Tests aregiven over large sections of material (several chapters) and are designed to testthe students’ ability to integrate important concepts and relationships.  The test questions will be gatheredfrom test banks, released AP exams, and teacher written questions.  They are designed to be thoughtprovoking, tough, and fair.  Muchclass time will be spent practicing how to answer the essay questions andexplaining how they will be graded. I will grade their essays as the AP Readers will score them.  After the test we will discuss thegrading rubrics and how I scored the answers.  A copy of this rubric will be sent with every test forfurther assistance.

     Approximately25% of our class time will be allotted for laboratory experimentation.  We will perform twelve mandatory labsalong with several others. Laboratory reports will be one of two types.

1.   Formal reports with background information, purpose,hypothesis (independent/dependent variables), materials, procedure,observations, data analysis, and conclusions/discussions.

2.   Shorter lab reports will be less intense, but willserve the same purpose.

Lab reports receive lettergrades based on thoroughness, accuracy of interpretation, and understanding ofthe concepts tested.  These labpracticals allow me to test the development of student lab    

Materials:

                                    Three ring binder

                                    Looseleaf notebook paper

                                    Compositionbook for labs

                                    Blueor black pens and pencils

                                    Coloredpencils

                  Grading:

        Tests= 30%                                    Labs= 30%

         Homework= 15%                                Quizzes = 25%

    Studentswill be held accountable for their own learning and must be willing to devotethe necessary time and labor to be successful in the course.  The course will be rigorous,interesting, and will prepare them for the college science courses they aregoing to encounter in the very near future.