AP Biology 2011-2012 Summer Assignment-Dr. Gottfried
Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High Biscayne Bay Campus
Welcome-
I am very pleased to have you as a member of what promises to be an excellent class. I wanted to get in touch with you before we begin so that you could know what to expect and how to get the most out of the AP class.
Advanced Placement Biology is a college biology course taught in high school. On May 14, 2012 you will take a standardized exam which will determine your eligibility for credit in college biology. The exact nature of the credit will in part also depend on the college you attend.
The course, the exam, and everything related to them are all designed to be at the level of a biology course taught to science majors at an elite university. This is not an easy class. It wouldn=t be an easy class in college.
The course covers a vast amount of material and thus makes heavy demands on even the best organized student. Given the schedule of the Miami-Dade County Public School System we have too little time to properly cover all the material in the course. Of course, there is the time devoted in Florida to mandatory testing. We can not afford to waste time additional time.
Class will be conducted at the college level and you are
expected to work accordingly. Your success in this class depends on you
meeting your responsibilities. A significant portion of the material
will be covered only in readings and allowances should be made for substantial
study time. (I would guess about 7-10
hours a week every week!)
Generally, in most programs, there are strict prerequisites and only students with As and Bs in honors biology and honors chemistry are taken into AP Biology– I have made some exceptions to this, if you find yourself “drowning” don’t wait to go down for the third time, but come seek help as soon as you realize you are out of your depth (this also applies to those who did well in biology and chemistry, but, aren’t well prepared). There are things you can do to help yourself. If you are concurrently taking chemistry, some things will become clearer as you progress through chemistry.
The textbook we will be using is Campbell=s Biology 7th Edition. It is also recommended that you purchase one of the AP Biology study guides as soon as possible, since they provide summaries of the material. Talk to the kids who took the class this year or in previous and see which book they recommend (Barrons, Cliffs, and Princeton seem to have been popular). You may want to set up a study group and as the group purchase a collection of review books. It can=t hurt!
I believe in using computers to keep lines of communication open between students and teachers. I have setup a web page: http://www.mdgottfried.net/apagenda/apagenda2011-12.html
which will contain information on the class as it develops and an e-mail list. If you have e-mail you NEED to sign up for the list as soon as possible by sending e-mail to the following address:
DrG-APBio-2011-12-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
You can leave the subject and body of the message blank.
Since the subscriber list is by email address, and I won’t recognize your addresses, once you have subscribed, please also send a note to the list mailto:DrG-APBio-2011-12@yahoogroups.com introducing yourself. The first people to do this will be rewarded for following directions.
Summer-
To overcome some of the time constraints I have in the past given summer readings and significant homework. This allowed us to get started with biology rather than to bog down in some background material. It also covers some material that we rarely have time for during the school year.
This year I would like to try something a little different, and “rev” you up rather than delve into content material directly. I want you to read two books. I want you all to read a non-fiction book on evolutionary biology. It should be available in the public libraries as well as at bookstores or Amazon.com.
Read: Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
To go along with the book I have prepared a series of questions which you have to answer. You may want to answer them as you read in a notebook or word processing document. When you have finished the book and all the questions please use my web form to submit your work. You can submit any time before Monday 8/29, 2011. (After that, it will be counted late). The web form can be reached http://mdgottfried.cwahi.net/Forms/AP/YIF/YIF.html
In addition I want you to read any other book from the list below. There are no advance questions for this second book, but you should be prepared to give a brief oral report on it the first week of school.
BOOK PROJECT-Part II
Read a nonfiction biology book, a brief summary and critique.
Directions:
Choose a nonfiction book related to biology to read. You can select a book from the suggested books listed below or choose a book not on the list with my approval (mgottfried@dadeschools.net).
Write an outline (or bulleted list) to help you with your oral report as described below. Make sure your outline is organized, in appropriate format, concise, and complete.
When school starts be prepared to present:
- a brief introduction, including the title, author, why the book was written and a short summary.
- at least one opinion supported by at least one quote.
- a conclusion about whether you would recommend the book and why
SUGGESTED
BOOK LIST
A
Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman
A
Sand
Biology
and the Social Crisis, John Keith Brierley
Black
Apollo of Science: The Life of Earnest Everett Just, Kenneth R. Manning
Black
Death and the Transformation of the West,The,
David Herlihy
Black
Death, The, Philip Ziegler
Body
Under Siege, Danny S. New
Body's
Edge, The: Our Cultural Obsession with Skin,
Marc Lappe
Bubonic
Plague in Nineteenth Century
Catastrophe,
David Keys
Clone,
Gina Kolata
Coming
Plague, The, Laurie Garrett
Cooperative
Gene, The, Mark Ridley
Dancing
Naked in the Mind Field, Kary Mullis
Dead
Men Do Tell Tales, William Maples
Deadly
Feasts, Richard Rhodes
Demon
in the Freezer, The, Richard Preston
Desert
Solitaire, Edward Abbey
Devil’s
Flu,The, Pete Davies
Disease
in History, Frederick Cartwright with Michael Bidiss
Double
Edged Sword: Promises and Risks of the Genetic Revolution, Karl Drlica
Double
Helix, The, James D. Watson
Emotional
Intelligence, Daniel Goleman
Evolutionary
Medicine, Marc Lappe
Fictions
of Disease in Early Modern
Finding
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of
1918…, Gina Kolata
Forgotten
Plague, The, Frank Ryan
Fourth
Horseman, The, Andrew Nikiforuk
From
Gaia to Selfish Genes: Selected Writing in the Life Science, Connie Barlow
Germs
that Won’t Die, Marc Lappe
Get
Bitten by the Biology Bug, Maura C. Flanger
Ghosts
of Evolution,The, Connie Barlow
Guns,
Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Hepatitis
B: The Hunt for a Killer Virus, Baruch S. Blumberg
Hot
Zone, The, Richard Preston
Hunt
for Hidden Killers, The: Ten Cases of Medical Mystery, Diane Yancey
Impact
of the Gene, The, Colin Tudge
In
the Wake of the Plague, Norman F. Cantor
Insects
and History, J. L. Cloudsley-Thomopson
Island
of the Colorblind, Oliver Sacks
Let's
Eat Right to Keep Fit, Adele Davis
Lives
of a Cell, The, Lewis Thomas
Lucy: Beginnings of Humankind, Donald C. Johanson
and Maitland Edey
Mapping
Fate, Alice Wexler
Molecules
of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way you Feel, Candace Pert
Mozart
Effect, The, Don Campbell
On
Becoming a Biologist, John Janovy, Jr.
Pilgrim
at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
Plague
Makers, The: The Coming Catastrophic of New Epidemics, Jeffrey A. Fisher
Plague
Makers, The: The Secret World of Biological Warfare, Wendy Barnaby
Plague
Time, Paul W. Ewald
Plagues
and Peoples, William H. McNeill
Prairie
Keepers, The: Secrets of the Grasslands, Marcy Cottrell Houle
Primal
Place,The, Robert Finch
Promises
and Risks of the Genetic Revolution, Karl Drlica
Rats,
Lice, and History, Hans Zinser
Reindeer
and Its Domestication, Berthold Laufer
Right
to be Intelligent, The, Luis Alberto Machado
Road
to Dolly and the Path Ahead, The, Gina Kolata
Rosalind
Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Brenda Maddox
Secret
of Life, The, Joe Levine
Seven
Daughters of Eve, The, Bryan Sykes
Silent
Spring, Rachel Carson
Silent
Travelers, The, Alan M. Kraut
Splendid
Voyage: An Introduction to New Science and New Technology, Pangratios Papacosta
Talking
Bones, Peggy Thomas
Toxic
Threat: How Hazardous Substances Poison Our Lives, Stephen J. Zipko
Virus
Hunting, Robert C. Gallo
Virus
Invaders, The, Alan E. Nourse, M. D.
What
if Everything You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong, Christing Maggiore and Kary Mullis
When
Plague Strikes, James Cross Giblin
Wings
For My Flight: The Peregrine Falcons of Chimney Rock, Marcy Cottrell Houle
Book Project Part III
(Optional) My classes have been fortunate to participate in activities and web casts of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Holiday Lectures on Science (http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/)
This coming year (December 2011) the lectures will be in part on paleontology. While I can’t know in advance exactly what would prepare you best for attending the web-cast, I thought you might enjoy reading a fictional description of the upper Paleolithic (30,000 ya). If you have time read The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel.