AP® Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 Elizabeth Carzoli Castle Park High School Chula Vista, California © 2012 The College Board. College Board, Advanced Placement Program, AP, SAT and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Board. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org. Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. About the College Board The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of more than 5,900 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success — including the SAT® and the Advanced Placement Program®. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools. For further information, visit www.collegeboard.org. AP Equity and Access Policy The College Board strongly encourages educators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP programs by giving all willing and academically prepared students the opportunity to participate in AP. We encourage the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP for students from ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underserved. Schools should make every effort to ensure their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population. The College Board also believes that all students should have access to academically challenging course work before they enroll in AP classes, which can prepare them for AP success. It is only through a commitment to equitable preparation and access that true equity and excellence can be achieved. Welcome to the AP® Biology Course Planning and Pacing Guides This guide is one of four Course Planning and Pacing Guides designed for AP® Biology teachers. Each provides an example of how to design instruction for the AP course based on the author’s teaching context (e.g., demographics, schedule, school type, setting). The Course Planning and Pacing Guides highlight how the components of the AP Biology Curriculum Framework — the learning objectives, course themes, conceptual understandings, and science practices — are addressed in the course. Each guide also provides valuable suggestions for teaching the course, including the selection of resources, instructional activities, laboratory investigations, and assessments. The authors have offered insight into the why and how behind their instructional choices — displayed in callout boxes along the right side of the individual unit plans — to aid in course planning for AP Biology teachers. Additionally, each author explicitly explains how he or she manages course breadth and increases depth for each unit of instruction. The primary purpose of these comprehensive guides is to model approaches for planning and pacing curriculum throughout the school year. However, they can also help with syllabus development when used in conjunction with the resources created to support the AP Course Audit: the Syllabus Development Guide and the four Annotated Sample Syllabi. These resources include samples of evidence and illustrate a variety of strategies for meeting curricular requirements. AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Contents Instructional Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Overview of the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Big Ideas and Science Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Managing Breadth and Increasing Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Course Planning and Pacing by Unit Unit 1: Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Unit 2: Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Unit 3: Biochemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Unit 4: Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Unit 5: Enzymes and Metabolism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Unit 6: Plant and Animal Structure and Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Unit 7: Heredity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Unit 8: Molecular Genetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Instructional Setting Castle Park High School Chula Vista, California School Castle Park High School is one of 13 high schools in the largest secondary district in California. It is a public school (grades 9–12) located in the southern portion of the city of Chula Vista. Student population Enrollment of approximately 1,600 students in grades 9–12: • 89 percent Hispanic • 4 percent Caucasian • 3 percent African American • 2 percent Filipino • 1 percent Asian American • 1 percent Pacific Islander • 72 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunches • 77 percent of students graduate • 67 percent of students continue their education at a postsecondary institution Instructional time The school year begins in mid-July and ends the first week of June. Prior to the AP Biology Exam, there are 165 instructional and lab days combined. There is one 90-minute block lab period per week, three 50-minute periods per week, and a 50-minute intervention period, totaling approximately 5 hours per week. The intervention period is held once a week as an opportunity for students to make up exams, labs, and/or homework. Additional intervention time: • 20 hours of after-school, fall- and spring-break review sessions for the AP Biology Exam, as well as in-class exams • 10 hours of Saturday and in-class review sessions for the AP Biology Exam 1 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Instructional Setting (continued) Student preparation AP® Biology is offered to juniors and seniors. Prerequisites: Students take honors biology or biology in the ninth grade, and honors chemistry or chemistry in the 10th grade. Students must pass both of these classes with a C or better. Textbooks and lab Campbell, Neil A., and Jane B. Reece. Biology. 8th ed. San Francisco: Pearson manuals Benjamin Cummings, 2008 Campbell, Neil A., and Jane B. Reece. AP Biology Lab Manual. New York: The College Board, 2001. AP Biology Investigative Labs: An Inquiry-Based Approach. New York: The College Board, 2012. AP Biology Lab Manual for Teachers. Burlington, NC: Carolina Biological Supply Company, 2006. AP Biology Lab Manual for Students. Burlington, NC: Carolina Biological Supply Company, 2006. 2 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Overview of the Course Castle Park High School champions academic excellence and personal • scaffolding of smaller concepts to bigger ones through the use of: success by offering rigorous and advanced classes to a community of diverse ° graphic organizers that build academic vocabulary learners. AP Biology, a one-year course offered to juniors and seniors, seeks to ° modeling and sequencing of activities motivate students to succeed in higher education and the world of scientific ° prompts, cues, hints, links, partial solutions, and guides work. Scientific inquiry, conceptual understanding, and the application of ° cooperative-learning strategies, pairing advanced learners with knowledge are at the heart of this course: developing ones, or creating small-group settings • The components of the AP Biology Curriculum Framework (i.e., big ideas, ° apprenticeship models, whereby expert students model activities, enduring understandings, and learning objectives) are integrated with provide peer learners with advice and examples, and guide them until science practices to achieve conceptual understanding and facilitate they can complete the task independently scientific inquiry and reasoning. ° academic language strategies, using sentence starters to help • Twenty-five percent of instructional time is dedicated to student-directed, students communicate orally or in writing so that they can express inquiry-based lab investigations and activities, which are conducted to their understanding of the curriculum deepen conceptual understandings and provide opportunities for students To assess student understanding and progress, a variety of assessment to practice science. instruments are used: • The curriculum is organized with a focus on instructional strategies that • Diagnostic assessments help me, as the teacher, better understand scaffold learning. Student-learning activities are planned around the students’ prior knowledge and misconceptions. For example, concept difficulty of the content or the students’ prior knowledge. maps or mind maps are used to gauge students’ understanding at the • Formative and summative assessments are used for continuous feedback beginning and end of each unit. between me, the students, and other teachers via personal contact and/ • Formative assessments allow me to check for student understanding or online communication. during the lesson and can be done orally with the entire class, in small- Because of the diverse student body, a variety of guiding principles and group settings, and/or individually via discussion with the particular instructional strategies are employed. Differentiated instruction is common student. This type of assessment allows me to provide feedback to in not only the AP Biology course, but also throughout our school. This type students and to inform or modify subsequent instructional activities of instruction allows teachers to use students’ prior knowledge and individual accordingly. For example, during mini-poster presentations, as I go around learning styles to design instruction which best meets the students’ learning the room monitoring student discussion groups, I listen to conversations needs. For example, Cornell notes, interactive notebooks, and mini-posters and constructively correct misconceptions or pose questions to are just a few of the research-based strategies used to scaffold learning. Other groups of students or to the class as a whole to refocus and correct instructional practices that have been successful with regard to differentiating misunderstandings. instruction include: • Summative assessments are essential in determining the collective • direct teacher instruction via 20- to 30-minute lectures to present difficult understanding of my students. Examples include multiple-choice topics and address student misconceptions questions, short- and free-constructed responses, and student-directed • open class discussions that encourage further inquiry and sharing of and inquiry-based lab investigations. ideas and opinions 3 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Overview of the Course (continued) I strive to create a safe and nurturing environment — one that reflects respect, integrity, trust, and caring — in order to best support students as they develop the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in college as well as develop into responsible citizens and lifelong learners. 4 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Big Ideas and Science Practices AP Biology Big Ideas Science Practice 2: The student can use mathematics appropriately. 2.1 The student can justify the selection of a mathematical routine to solve Big Idea 1: The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life. problems. Big Idea 2: Biological systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks 2.2 The student can apply mathematical routines to quantities that describe to grow, to reproduce, and to maintain dynamic homeostasis. natural phenomena. 2.3 The student can estimate numerically quantities that describe natural Big Idea 3: Living systems store, retrieve, transmit, and respond to information phenomena. essential to life processes. Big Idea 4: Biological systems interact, and these systems and their Science Practice 3: The student can engage in scientific questioning interactions possess complex properties. to extend thinking or to guide investigations within the context of the AP course. 3.1 The student can pose scientific questions. Science Practices for AP Biology 3.2 The student can refine scientific questions. A practice is a way to coordinate knowledge and skills in order to accomplish 3.3 The student can evaluate scientific questions. a goal or task. The science practices enable students to establish lines of Science Practice 4: The student can plan and implement data collection evidence and use them to develop and refine testable explanations and strategies appropriate to a particular scientific question. predictions of natural phenomena. These science practices capture important aspects of the work that scientists engage in, at the level of competence 4.1 The student can justify the selection of the kind of data needed to answer expected of AP Biology students. a particular scientific question. 4.2 The student can design a plan for collecting data to answer a particular Science Practice 1: The student can use representations and models scientific question. to communicate scientific phenomena and solve scientific problems. 4.3 The student can collect data to answer a particular scientific question. 1.1 The student can create representations and models of natural or 4.4 The student can evaluate sources of data to answer a particular man-made phenomena and systems in the domain. scientific question. 1.2 The student can describe representations and models of natural or man-made phenomena and systems in the domain. Science Practice 5: The student can perform data analysis and evaluation 1.3 The student can refine representations and models of natural or of evidence. man-made phenomena and systems in the domain. 5.1 The student can analyze data to identify patterns or relationships. 1.4 The student can use representations and models to analyze situations 5.2 The student can refine observations and measurements based on or solve problems qualitatively and quantitatively. data analysis. 1.5 The student can reexpress key elements of natural phenomena across 5.3 The student can evaluate the evidence provided by data sets in relation multiple representations in the domain. to a particular scientific question. 5 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Big Ideas and Science Practices (continued) Science Practice 6: The student can work with scientific explanations and theories. 6.1 The student can justify claims with evidence. 6.2 The student can construct explanations of phenomena based on evidence produced through scientific practices. 6.3 The student can articulate the reasons that scientific explanations and theories are refined or replaced. 6.4 The student can make claims and predictions about natural phenomena based on scientific theories and models. 6.5 The student can evaluate alternative scientific explanations. Science Practice 7: The student is able to connect and relate knowledge across various scales, concepts, and representations in and across domains. 7.1 The student can connect phenomena and models across spatial and temporal scales. 7.2 The student can connect concepts in and across domain(s) to generalize or extrapolate in and/or across enduring understandings and/or big ideas. 6 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board. Managing Breadth and Increasing Depth Unit Managing Breadth Increasing Depth Unit 1: Ecology is addressed at the beginning of the school year. During the summer prior to taking As a result of not teaching classification, I can focus on conceptual understanding in my ecology Ecology the AP Biology course, students must complete a multiday homework assignment consisting unit. I begin by selecting some essential knowledge pieces from big idea 2 which align with of various activities and research components focused on ecology. This approach allows me to Campbell and Reece, Chapters 51–55, and slowly integrate several essential knowledge pieces save about three days of instruction, since we review and correct this assignment during the first from big idea 4. For example, I can make connections regarding how all biological systems couple of school days. are affected by complex biotic and abiotic interactions and how these interactions possess complex properties. The additional instructional time allows me to use various examples in Also, since I no longer teach classification (e.g., a march through the phyla), I save approximately helping students explain and justify these interactions across cells and organisms, populations, one week of instruction. communities, and ecosystems. Unit 2: In the past, a significant amount of my instructional time (approximately one week) was spent The additional time for instruction on phylogenetic trees and scientific and mathematical models Evolution on organism diversity and classification, and most of that time my students spent memorizing, related to evolution gives students the opportunity to engage in activities in which they can pose and trying to retain, the taxonomy of organisms. Now when I teach evolution, my focus is on scientific questions, construct cladograms, and/or analyze models of the origin of life and the the mechanisms of evolution, such as natural selection and its support from many disciplines. I biological processes of evolution. now spend that one week of instruction focusing on phylogeny and the tree of life (Campbell and Reece, Chapter 26). A significant number of chapters have been eliminated from this unit. I do not have to teach Chapters 28–34, which cover protists, plant diversity, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates. These seven chapters include all the animal and plant diversity; removing them from the course saves a week of instruction. Unit 3: I don’t teach Campbell and Reece, Chapter 2: “The Chemical Context of Life” unless my students’ Not teaching Chapter 2 affords me additional time to focus on biochemistry in Chapters 3–5. In Biochemistry lack of prior knowledge in this area warrants it. I do a quick assessment activity by reviewing this unit, three big ideas can be addressed. Specifically in Chapters 3 and 4, essential knowledge with a concept map (on which I will spend an additional day) but then continue on to Chapters pieces, such as the exchange of matter between an organism and the environment and scientific 3–5, which discuss water, carbon, and macromolecules, for the biochemistry. This saves about evidence of the possible role that inorganic and organic precursors play in this exchange, can be two days of instruction. combined. Unit 4: In the past I taught cells/cell membrane and cell communication as separate units. Now, with Because I have saved a few days on other units, I incorporate some of those days into the cell Cells the new curriculum framework, I combine them into one unit, thus helping my students make unit. The additional time allows me to go into depth, not just in teaching the structure and connections between big ideas and the learning of these concepts across domains. I teach function of cells or of the membrane but in making connections with cell communication. Cell pieces from multiple big ideas when I combine these two units. For example, when I teach cell communication is not an easy concept to teach, but by incorporating the topic into this unit, I can membranes, I can incorporate cell-to-cell communication and the importance of proteins and help students observe the relevance in structure and function of cells, cell membranes, and cell molecules on the membrane for cell communication processes. signaling pathways. The topic of cell communication can be difficult for some students. This is when I take advantage of the extra time, to reinforce difficult and connecting concepts. Unit 5: Cellular respiration and photosynthesis may seem confusing topics to teach together, but using Previously, I had my students memorize the steps in photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Enzymes and them to compare and contrast energy processes and strategies helps students understand However, since memorization of such factoids is now unnecessary (conceptual understanding Metabolism the ecology, evolution, and effects on all organisms. In this unit I added resource acquisition here is the key), I continue to teach these two processes but now focus on major concepts (i.e., and transport in vascular plants, as a way to connect cell membrane transport, metabolism, how organisms utilize free energy to grow, reproduce, and maintain homeostasis). The four photosynthesis, and transpiration, thus connecting two big ideas (2 and 4), and saved additional days enable students to engage in an in-depth examination of photosynthesis and approximately four days of instruction. cellular respiration by exploring the processes. 7 AP Biology ■ Course Planning and Pacing Guide 3 © 2012 The College Board.