AP Biology-2 Summer Assignments 2015
Part 1: AP Biology Summer Reading List 2015
Required Summer Reading & “Book Review” Pre-Write Activity:
DIRECTIONS: Use sticky notes summary technique to read 1 of the book choices below
then complete pre-write assignment
*Read only 1 book total from any of the 4 biological topics below, so choose one in a
topic you enjoy and be able to discuss and present to others on that 1 book only.
1. Evolution authors
Stephen Jay Gould Panda’s Thumb
ISBN: 0-393-30819-7
Stephen Jay Gould Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes ISBN 0-393-01716-8
Essays on evolution and natural history
Neil Shubin Your Inner Fish
Sean B. Carroll Remarkable Creatures
Sean B. Carroll Endless Forms Most Beautiful
ISBN: 978-0-307-27745-9
ISBN: 978-0-15-101485-9
ISBN: 978-0-393-32779-3
Evolutionary Development (EvoDevo)
2. Cellular Biology authors
Rebecca Skloot The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5218-9
Starts to untangles the ethical issues in the case of a woman whose cancer cells have been the
basis for a vast amount of research and discoveries
Lewis Thomas The Lives of a Cell; Notes of a Biology Watcher ISBN: 0140047433
(or other by Lewis Thomas: Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979),
The Fragile Species (1992), The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine-Watcher (1984))
Essays on Life
3. Ecology/Environmental authors
Rachel Carson Silent Spring
ISBN: 9780618249060
Carson's classic expose of poisons in the environment and how they accumulate in the tissues of
animals.
Rachel Carson The Sea Around Us
ISBN: 9780195147018
Recommendations regarding the care of the oceans that are still timely more than 50 years later.
Theo Colborn et al. Our Stolen Future
ISBN: 0-525-93982-2
The impact that synthetic chemicals in the environment have on human reproduction, development,
and disease.
William C. Agosta Thieves, Deceivers, and Killers: Tales of Chemistry in Nature
ISBN: 9780691092737
A collection of stories woven together with the thread of chemistry ecology -- antibiotics, enzymes
in extremophiles, intricate chemical communication in insects, etc.
4. Behavior
Marian Stamp Dawkins Though Our Eyes Only? The Search for Animal Consciousness
ISBN: 9780198503200
An account of what is currently known about animal consciousness.
Edward O. Wilson Sociobiology: The New Synthesis: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
ISBN: 0-674-00089-7
A description of the then-new science of sociobiology (the study of the biological basis of social
behavior).
1|Page
AP Biology-2 Summer Assignments 2015
Part 2: AP Biology Suggested Summer Review
1. Study only summer review Part A. No need to write anything just use varied
study skills to review the attached materials & pre-AP topics that prepare you for
success in AP Biology. (hint: meta-cognition)
2. Watch some of these fun short video clips to become familiar with the themes &
topics of AP Biology; find some others of your own for some of the topics.
a. Order & Organization: Nature by Numbers
b. Science as a Process & collaboration: Bacteria Talk
c. Cellular: Plasma Membrane Rap
d. Evolution & Continuity and Change: Central Dogma rap
e. Energy Transfer: Cellular Respiration
f. Relationship of Structure to Function
g. Regulation/Homeostasis: Gene Regulation , Clonal Selection
h. Response: Synaptic Cleft
i. Reproduction: Plants , HOX genes, Meiosis
j. Interdependence in Nature: Coevolution
k. Science, Technology, and Society: Global Climate change
Further or Supplemental Science Course Recommendations:
Anatomy (covers animal systems in AP curriculum)
AP Chemistry
Physics
Course Prerequisites: Advanced Physical Science, Biology & recommend Chemistry
(passed A/B)
2|Page