MR. JEFFREY A. VRANKA, M.ED.
Science Department – AP Biology / Zoology Teacher
Woodland Hills High School
vranje@whsd.net
(412) 244-1100
AP BIOLOGY COURSE SYLLABUS (2010-2011)
INTRODUCTION: Advanced Placement Biology applies a quantitative and chemistry-based
perspective to the understanding of biological processes. It differs from the first-year course
(biology class taken in 9th grade) by increasing the range and depth of topics covered and
laboratory experiences offered. The topics covered will be similar to those covered in your
9th grade biology class. Major topics include molecular and cellular biology, classical and
molecular genetics, evolution, organism biology, and ecology. This course prepares students
to take the AP exam, which if highly scored, could lead to the student earning college credits
for up to 2 college biology courses. Prerequisites for AP Biology include Biology,
Chemistry and Physics with a recommended grade C or better.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The AP Biology class meets for single periods three days a week
and for double periods twice a week. My teaching style is a mix of lectures based on Power
Point presentations, classroom dialogue between students and instructor, and opportunities
for students to work as individuals or in small groups in guided laboratory activities. My
Power Point presentations are based on figures from the textbook enhanced by my own slides
including links to other resources on the Internet. I will make efforts to maintain a course
website though which students can access my lesson plans, power point presentations,
laboratory data and analysis generated from the class lab activities, and my annotated list of
books for recommended outside reading. This website can be found at www.whsd.net.
COURSE CONTENT BY UNIT:
UNIT TOPICS (approx. number of days, textbook chapters)
I CHEMISTRY OF LIFE (12 days, Chaps. 2-6)
Chemistry review (matter, isotopes, ionic vs. covalent bonding,
hydrogen bonding)
Properties of water (description of water properties and their
importance for life, pH)
Structure and function of organic molecules (carbon skeletons,
functional groups, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, nucleic
acids)
Metabolism (energy conversions, enzymes, and chemical
reactions)
Unit exam
II CELL STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION (20 days, Chaps.
7,8,12)
Effects of cell size and shape on surface area to volume ratio
Prokaryotic vs. eukaryotic cells and endosymbiotic hypothesis for
origin of eukaryotes (compared in Lab: Measuring Cells)
Endomembrane system and other membrane bound organelles
Cytoskeleton and animal and plant cell junctions
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SUGGESTED LAB
ACTIVITIES
Water properties
(may not do to
time restraints)
Enzyme catalysis (AP
Bio Lab 2)
Measuring cells
Plant Cells and
plastids
Osmotic pressure of
cell sap (equivalent
of AP Bio Lab 1)
Membrane structure and passive transport
Active transport mechanisms
Cell division
Regulating the cell cycle
Unit exam
Mitosis (AP Bio Lab
3A)
III CELL METABOLISM (18 days, Chaps. 9,10)
Glucose oxidation without oxygen (glycolysis and fermentation)
Glucose oxidation with oxygen (cellular respiration)
Efficiency and regulation of glucose oxidation; harvesting energy
from other organic molecules
Fitness of light for powering life
Light energy capturing reactions
Carbon fixing reactions (C-3 vs. C-4 photosynthesis)
Unit exam
IV CLASSICAL GENETICS (25 days, Chaps. 13,14,15 and
selected portions of Chap. 31)
Chromosome theory of inheritance
Meiosis and sexual reproduction in protists, plants, and animals
Origins and importance of genetic variation
Mendel’s principles
Extending Mendel’s principles (allele and gene interactions,
multifactorial traits)
Genetic problems and probability
Autosomal vs. sex-linked inheritance
Recombination and gene linkage
Chromosomal abnormalities
Unit exam
V MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (26 days, Chaps. 16, 17, 20, and
selected portions of Chaps. 18 and 19)
Viruses and the hereditary molecule
Watson-Crick model for DNA structure
DNA replication
Gene-protein link
Protein synthesis and point mutations
Gene recombination in prokaryotes
Gene regulation in prokaryotes (Operon hypothesis)
Organization and control of eukaryotic genome
Techniques of genetic engineering
Unit exam
VI EVOLUTION AND TAXONOMY (19 days, Chaps. 22, 23,
24, and selected portions of Chap. 25)
Evidence for evolution
Theories for evolution
Population genetics and microevolution
Effects of natural selection on genetic structure of populations
Species and modes of speciation
Tempo and trends of macroevolution
Phylogeny, systematics, and taxonomy
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Cell respiration (AP
Bio Lab 5)
Plant pigments &
photosynthesis
(AP Bio Lab 4)
Simulation of meiosis
(AP Bio Lab 3B1)
Sordaria genetics and
mapping
chromosomes (AP
Bio Lab 3B2)
Drosophila genetics
and Chi Square
analysis (AP Bio
Lab 7)
Measuring with
micropipettors
Bacterial
transformation (AP
Bio Lab 6A)
Paper simulations of
restriction
enzymes and
recombinant
plasmids
Gel electrophoresis
(AP Bio Lab 6B)
Population genetics
simulation (AP Bio
Lab 8)
“Dueling Alleles”
(computer
simulation of
genetic structure
dynamics of a
population over
Unit exam
multiple
generations)
VI ANIMALS (15 days, selected portions of Chaps.32, 42, 43,
44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, and 51)
Phylogenetic tree of animal kingdom and introduction to animal
development
Evolution of circulatory and respiratory systems
Water balance and waste disposal
Structure and function of mammalian excretory system
Body defenses
Endocrine system and human reproduction
Nerve impulses and nervous systems
Structure and function of muscle tissue
Unit exam
VIII PLANTS (10 days, selected portions of Chaps. 29, 30, 35,
36, 38, and 39)
Plant anatomy and primary vs secondary growth
Transpiration and its regulation
Translocation
Evolution of plant life cycles
Plant hormones and plant behavior
Unit exam
IX ECOLOGY (8 days, Chap. 54 and selected portions of Chaps.
52 and 53)
Characteristics of populations
Community ecology
Energy flow in ecosystems
Material cycling in ecosystem
Unit exam
Physiology of the
circulatory system
(AP Bio Lab 10)
Animal behavior and
human speech (AP
Bio Lab 11)
Plant tissue types and
arrangements (AP
Bio Lab 9B)
Transpiration (AP
Bio Lab 9A)
Flower and seed
dissection
Dissolved oxygen
and primary
productivity (AP
Bio Lab 12)
STUDENT EVALUATION/ASSESSMENT: Written homework assignments, classroom
participation, lab reports, quizzes, and tests are the primary basis for evaluating student
achievement in this course. I award up to an additional 5% extra credit each term for
completing an approved outside reading log and report. Homework assignments include
teacher-designed worksheets and end-of-chapter problem sets from the textbook. Since the
textbook provides answers to some of the problems, I expect students to check their own
answers and annotate those items with which they had difficulty. Attendance and appropriate
learning behaviors (e.g. staying awake, participating in class discussion and lab activities,
bringing needed materials) are the main criteria for assessing class participation. Being
Prompt and Prepared are two of the main rules of the WHHS! Correct and appropriate
presentation of data and data analysis (e.g. charts, graphs, calculations) and clearly expressed
answers (in complete sentences and correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar) to assigned
questions demonstrating comprehension of relevant concepts determine the scores on lab
reports. Quizzes and tests are a combination of multiple choice, short answer, and essay
questions attempting to simulate the format of the AP exam. It is your responsibility to get
work completed and turned in on time.
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COURSE MATERIALS: We use Campbell, Reece, and Mitchell’s Biology (5th edition,
copyright 1999 by Benjamin/Cummings, an imprint of Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.) as
our textbook. A complementary computer CD (Interactive Study Partner) accompanies each
book and provides tutorials, practice quizzes, and web links for each text chapter. I
supplement the textbook with my own lab manual that includes all of the 12 recommended
lab activities (or their equivalent) plus additional labs and supplementary worksheets. In
addition I supply an annotated list of a wide range of books related to the topics in the course.
OUTSIDE READING: To earn extra credit students may spend up to 200 minutes each sixweek term reading a book relevant to the subject of the course. Students may select a title
from the reading list provided or choose their own book subject to approval by the teacher.
To earn credit students must present reading log sheets listing the dates, the specific pages
read, and time spent in outside reading. In addition students attach a written report (two page
minimum) on their reading addressing TWO of the following topics:
1. Scientific Process: What observations or questions, hypotheses, specific methods
or techniques, or conclusions showed novel thinking or creativity? How does this
reading illustrate the importance of cooperation or competition between two or
more scientists communicating directly with each other or scientists making use
of information collected by previous scientists? At what level(s) of biological
organization (molecule, cell, organism, population, etc.) does your reading focus.
2. Science Personalities: How does this reading illustrate the unique characteristics
of individuals who involve themselves in scientific research? What motivates
scientists to pursue scientific research? What are the values, fallibilities, biases,
social conscience of scientists? What challenges did individual scientists confront
in their careers? How did they respond to these challenges? What other interests
do scientists have outside of their science careers?
3.
Science, Technology, and Society: How does this reading illustrate: (a.) how
science has benefited technology and vice versa? (b.) how science and technology
introduce new risks and benefits, problems and solutions, constraints and tradeoffs for society? (c.) How scientific discoveries and resultant technologies affect
the values and life styles of society?
4. Personal Revelations: How has this reading amused you, excited you, amazed
you, altered your opinions, and/or affected your own appreciation of life and your
values? How do you assess the writing style and graphics in this reading? Why
would you recommend or not recommend this reading to other students?
OUTSIDE READING BOOK LIST
Author’s Last Author’s First
Books
Name
Name
Darwin
Charles
The Origin of Species. 1859. available on internet:
www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-the-species.
Revolutionary book which presents Darwin’s “long argument” for
evolution of species by natural selection.
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Diamond
Jared
Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1999. As
an evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond opens our eyes to some
simple yet powerful environmental effects on the development of
human societies.
Gould
Stephen J. Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes. New York: Norton, 1983. A
collection of essays which illustrate, examine, and extend the study of
Darwinian evolution. Each essay is a reprint of one of Gould’s articles
in Natural History magazine.
Heinrich
Bernd
Mind of the Raven. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999.
Bernd Heinrich, a college biology professor, shares his many
observations and experiments on raven behavior. His narrative style
explores the fascinations of a human mind as much as the mysteries of
a raven’s.
Hölldobler Bert and Edward Journey to the ants : a story of scientific exploration. Cambridge,
O. Wilson Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994. A fascinating
narrated tour of the many species of ants observed by these two world
reknowned formicologists.
Hubbell
Sue
Waiting for Aphrodite. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.
Sue Hubbell explores the world of invertebrate animals, featuring
millipedes, pill bugs, earthworms, sea urchins, and many others. Ms.
Hubbell supplements her own observations with findings of other
biologists whose research has specialized in the particular invertebrate
described. Each chapter is self-sufficient and ends with a bibliography
of references cited.
Lorenz
Konrad
King Solomon’s Ring. New York: Harper & Row, 1952. Delightful
anecdotes of author’s experiences and investigations into animal
behavior.
McPhee
John
Encounters with the Archdruid. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux, 1971. While exploring the wilderness areas they wish to
develop, a mineral engineer, a resort developer, and a builder of
gigantic dams encounter the militant conservationist David Brower.
McPhee’s genuine affection for all the characters forces the reader to
listen carefully and think deeply before coming to any conclusions.
Quammen
David
The Song of the Dodo. New York: Scribner, 1996. Travelogue which
zigzags over planet earth tracing the adventures of scientists past and
present as they explore biogeography, the study of the distribution of
species. Documents the impact human activity is having on
biodiversity.
Ridley
Matt
Genome. New York: Perennial of HarperCollins Publishers. 1999.
By picking one newly discovered gene from each pair of
chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of
our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of
future medicine.
Sacks
Oliver
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and other clinical tales.
New York: Harper Collins, 1985. Deals with the author’s encounters
with patients and the lessons he learns about neurology and brain
function while treating them.
Sapolsky
Robert M. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: a guide to stress, stress related
diseases, and coping. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994. Fascinating
accounts of research into animal and human behavior, the underlying
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Schrodinger
Sykes
Tinbergen
Ward
Watson
Watson
Weidensaul
Weiner
Weiner
physiology, and implications for the effects of life style on general
health.
Erwin
What is life? & Mind and Matter. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1967. Originally published in 1944 and 1958 respectively, these
two short books are an attempt by a theoretical physicist to prove that
the processes of life can be explained by principles of chemistry and
physics (reductionism). Reading What is Life? stimulated James
Watson to search for the structure of DNA and E. O. Wilson to pursue
his interest in biology.
Bryan
The Seven Daughters of Eve. New York: W. W. Norton. 2001. In
this national bestseller Sykes reveals how the identification of a
particular strand of DNA that passes unbroken through the maternal
line allows scientists to trace our genetic makeup all the way back to
prehistoric times—to seven primeval women, the “seven daughters of
Eve.”
Niko
The Herring Gull’s World. Garden City: Doubleday, 1967. A classic
study of the behavior of a common bird species. Tinbergen uses direct
observations of Herring Gulls in their wild environment, simple field
experiments, and brilliant deductions to analyze the functioning of the
gull’s brain and nervous system and the implications for understanding
the workings of the human mind.
Peter D. and Rare Earth. New York: Copernicus, 2000. A geologist and an
astronomer analyze the evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial
Donald
Brownlee
life and conclude that complex animal life may be unique to planet
Earth.
James
The Double Helix. 1968. Autobiographical account of the people and
events surrounding the momentous discovery of how an unexpected
molecule stores and replicates genetic information.
James
Molecular Biology of the Gene. New York: W. A. Benjamin, 1965.
A delightfully readable textbook based on a series of lectures this
Nobel laureate presented to his introductory biology students at
Harvard. Fascinating for its historical perspective on molecular
biology soon after the discovery of the structure and function of DNA.
Scott
Living on the Wind: across the hemisphere with migratory birds.
New York: North Point Press, 1999. A very readable travelogue
tracing the migratory routes of many bird species, exploring the
current research into the mysteries of bird migration, and investigating
the implications of this new knowledge for preserving biodiversity on
earth.
Jonathan
The beak of the finch : the story of evolution in real time. New York:
Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1994. Pulitzer prize-winning
documentary of the research of Peter and Rosemary Grant into the
microevolution of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands.
Jonathan
Time, love, memory : a great biologist and his quest for the origins of
behavior. New York: Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random
House, 1999. Well-written documentary of the personalities,
investigations, and collaborations of Seymour Benzer and his students
as they explore the genetics of fruit fly behavior and its implications
for understanding human behavior.
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Wilson
Winn
Edward Osborne Naturalist. Washington: Island Press, 1994. A fascinating
autobiography of how a young boy fascinated by nature, raised as a
southern Baptist, and trained in a military academy became one of the
foremost biologists of the 21st century.
Marie
Red-Tails in Love. New York: Vintage Books, 1999. A diary of
encounters of humans with nature in New York City’s Central Park.
Readers will participate in a drama of wildlife observation which
highlights human love and care for the natural environment.
GENERAL RULES OF THE WHHS:
• Be Prompt: Be in your assigned seats when the bell rings and have all
materials ready to work. Late arrivals to class will be dealt with in a fair, but
strict manner according to school policy.
• Be Prepared: Come to class everyday with a writing utensil and your binder.
Writing utensils will not be available.
• Be Polite: Do not talk while the teacher or another student is talking. Raise
your hand to speak.
• Be Productive: No sleeping! Stay focused and working throughout the class
period. Sleeping through an AP class is like going to the movies to sleep
through it; why waste the effort!
LATE ASSIGNMENT POLICY: The late assignment policy is as follows: late work will
not be accepted! You signed up for a college level course and should, therefore, be expected
to work at that level throughout the year. Deadlines and due dates will be strict throughout
the course. Because the material of the course is extremely important throughout the year, all
assignments should be completed and turned in, even if not for a grade.
Here’s why you should still turn in late work, even if not for a grade:
• You will still be working through the material, thus gaining knowledge of the
material. Because you did not time to do a homework assignment does not mean that
the content will not be on quizzes, tests, and the AP exam.
• Work that is gone over in class could still be corrected on your late work; again, this
will greatly improve your success in the class. Remember, it is your responsibility to
keep up and determine what you need to work on throughout the course.
• I will mark down in grade book that you completed and turned in the late assignment.
These “points” could be used at the end of the grading period to bump you up if
needed. Please do not rely on them to drastically change your grade. After all, if you
are not doing homework your grade probably is not where your want it to anyway!
* If you are not in class but you are in school, any assignment due that day should be turned
in that day. Consequently, any material gone over in class should be obtained from either a
classmate or your teacher. There is no excuse for you not getting work turned in or missing a
lecture!
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If you need additional time with me to work through the material in AP Biology you need to
come and talk to me. I will gladly set up some time, outside of class, to meet with you. My
schedule is as follows. My preps, my lunch, your lunch, ASE classes, and after school are all
appropriate times for additional help. Do not expect me to get you out of another class for
AP help!
Mr. Vranka’s 2009-2010 Schedule
Period 1:
AP Biology- Rm. 203 (Monday – Friday)
Period 2:
AP Biology Lab - Rm. 203 (Tuesday & Thursday)
Period 2:
Prep (Monday, Wednesday, & Friday)
Period 3:
Zoology 201 (Monday – Friday)
Period 4:
Period 5:
Period 6:
Period 7:
Zoology 201 (Monday – Friday)
Period 8:
Zoology 201 (Monday – Friday)
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Parental/Student Signature Form for AP Biology
To demonstrate that you have read through and understand the responsibilities of this AP
Biology classroom, sign below. Take this course syllabus home and ask your
parents/guardian to review the contents and sign below. Signing of this document does not
necessary show your agreement with the contents of the syllabus, only that you have read
them and realize that you are expected to follow them without obligation.
Please gently remove this document from your syllabus and return it to me by the next school
day.
Thank you,
Mr. Vranka, M.Ed.
Print Student Name: __________________________________
Date: ____________________ Student Signature: _______________________________
Date: ____________________ Parent Signature: _______________________________
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