In Pre-AP Biology, students engage in real-world data analysis and problem solving that sparks critical thinking about our living world. As students engage in grade-level content, they utilize the kind of scientific reasoning skills needed to analyze the natural world—and to succeed in future science and social science courses in high school and college.
Areas of Focus
The Pre-AP science areas of focus are vertically aligned to the science practices embedded in high school and college courses, including AP. This gives students multiple opportunities to think and work like scientists as they develop and strengthen these disciplinary reasoning skills throughout their education in the sciences:
-Emphasis on analytical reading and writing: Students engage in analytical reading and writing to gain, retain, and apply scientific knowledge and to carry out scientific argumentation.
-Strategic use of mathematics: Students use mathematics strategically in order to understand and express quantitative aspects of biology, to record and interpret experimental data, and to solve problems.
-Attention to modeling: Students go beyond labeling diagrams to creating, revising, and using models to explain key patterns, interactions, and relationships in -biological systems.
Unit Foundations
These four big ideas are addressed across all units:
-The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.
-Growth and reproduction in biological systems are dependent upon the cycling of matter and the transformation of energy.
-Biological systems, occurring at various scales, respond and adapt to stimuli in order to maintain dynamic homeostasis.
-Genetic mechanisms are essential to maintaining biological systems.
Course at a Glance
Pre-AP Biology has four main units. Their key topics and recommended length are outlined here:
-Unit 1: Ecological Systems (~5 weeks)
-Unit 2: Evolution (~4 weeks)
-Unit 3: Cellular Systems (~10 weeks)
-Unit 4: Genetics (~9 weeks)