Science
What is this course all about?
Biology is a standards-based, college preparatory laboratory science course. This course centers on the biosphere and examines how it interacts with each of the other Earth systems. The instruction follows California Next Generation Science Standards, reinforces prior knowledge, and builds scientific inquiry and methods.
How will this course help me be College and Career Ready?
All students need an opportunity to experience science as a process and not just learn biology as a collection of unrelated facts. It is critical that students connect new concepts with what they know, with each connection they help themselves build a solid framework of biological knowledge and scientific know-how. This framework will help students to enter their future, prepared for whatever may lie ahead of them.
What concepts and skills will I master in this course?
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles of cell biology. Students will demonstrate a detailed understanding of the increasingly important role that genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology play in the biological sciences. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the theory of evolution by natural selection and its central role in biology. Students will demonstrate an ecological understanding of the biosphere. These areas constitute a major portion of the course.
What is this course all about?
AP Biology is an introductory college-level biology course. Students cultivate their understanding of biology through inquiry-based investigations as they explore the following topics: evolution, cellular processes, energy and communication, genetics, information transfer, ecology, and interactions. All essential knowledge will be taught and all learning objectives will be addressed through this curriculum. The course will focus on inquiry-based laboratory work and the use of the seven science practices in both lab and non-lab activities. See https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/ap-biology-course-and-exam-description.pdf for full description.
How will this course help me be College and Career Ready?
All students need an opportunity to experience science as a process and not just learn biology as a collection of unrelated facts. This means that the course should emphasize how scientists use their observations and readings to ask questions that can lead to new experiments. These experiments build on the work of others and eventually lead to additional evidence on different topics. This investigative process will be used throughout this AP Biology course. It is important for students to become excited with discovery as they ask and answer their own questions about natural/biological phenomena that they see, read about, or experience in the laboratory and field. In addition, it is critical that students connect new concepts with what they know, with each connection they help themselves build a solid framework of biological knowledge and scientific know-how. This framework will help students to enter their future, prepared for whatever may lie ahead of them.
What concepts and skills will I master in this course?
Course Organization
This course is structured around the four big ideas and the enduring understandings identified in the Curriculum Framework. All essential knowledge will be taught and all learning objectives will be addressed through this curriculum. The course will focus on inquiry-based laboratory work and the use of the seven science practices in both lab and non-lab activities.
What is this course all about?
For chemistry, it’s all about learning about the atom, how to read the Periodic Table, discerning how chemicals and atoms react, understanding and applying the Scientific Method via experiment labs and reports.
How will this course help me be College and Career Ready?
With completion of this course and fully engaging with the activities designed inside this classroom a scholar will enter into the college and professional scientific world with a keen sense of scientific discipline, laboratory safety skills, and a desire to learn more.
What concepts and skills will I master in this course?
Each scholar will learn to use tools and knowledge of chemistry in a way that empowers them to observe their world in a scientific way. Concepts will scaffold from the basics of atomic structure, how atoms interact to create other molecules, and scientific inquiry that will be fun and scholarly.
What is this course all about?
For Oceans and Marine Biology, this course is all about understanding how the oceans were formed, the chemistry of the ocean, the physics of the ocean, life in the ocean, and lastly the conservation of the ocean.
How will this course help me be College and Career Ready?
With completion of this course and fully engaging with the activities designed inside this classroom a scholar will enter into the college and professional scientific world with a keen sense of scientific discipline, quantitative field methods of study, and a knowledge of how important oceans are for daily life.
What concepts and skills will I master in this course?
Each scholar will learn to use tools and knowledge of Marine Biology in a way that empowers them to observe their world in a scientific way. Concepts will scaffold from the basics of Ocean Geology to the surface level of ocean Chemistry and lastly deep into Ocean biology.