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.
We will be using an e-book or online textbook for this course. The e-book can be found at the following URL:
http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/book/9239
To download a list of all the chapters including URLs please CLICK HERE
The topics we will cover are listed below, not necessarily in the order they will be presented:
TOPIC OUTLINE
Topic Percentage of Course
I . Molecules and Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25%
A . Chemistry of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7%
Water
Organic molecules in organisms
Free energy changes
Enzymes
B . Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10%
Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells
Membranes
Subcellular organization
Cell cycle and its regulation
C . Cellular Energetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%
Coupled reactions
Fermentation and cellular respiration
Photosynthesis
II . Heredity and Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25%
A . Heredity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%
Meiosis and gametogenesis
Eukaryotic chromosomes
Inheritance patterns
B . Molecular Genetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9%
RNA and DNA structure and function
Gene regulation
Mutation
Viral structure and replication
Nucleic acid technology and applications
C . Evolutionary Biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%
Early evolution of life
Evidence for evolution
Mechanisms of evolution
III . Organisms and Populations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50%
A . Diversity of Organisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8%
Evolutionary patterns
Survey of the diversity of life
Phylogenetic classification
Evolutionary relationships
B . Structure and Function of Plants and Animals . . . . . . . . . . 32%
Reproduction, growth, and development
Structural, physiological, and behavioral adaptations
Response to the environment
C . Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10%
Population dynamics
Communities and ecosystems
Global issues
