Week 1 Lecture 1, AP Biology Course Introduction:

Free Response Questions: -Make connections and think critically

-Connect a recent lab assignment to topics in lecture. -Tie lecture material to larger biological themes. -Show relevance of lecture material to everyday concerns.

Week 1 Lecture 2, Big Ideas:

Big Idea 1: Evolution-The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.

-Example: Random changes (mutations) in the sequence of DNA result in changes in an organism’s characteristics. -Example: Two species with a common ancestor will share many

characteristics. Big Idea 2: Cellular Processes: Energy and Communication

-Biological systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, to reproduce, and to maintain dynamic homeostasis.

-Example: The energy from adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is used to covalently link amino acids together into a peptide.

-Example: The amount of sugar in the blood is monitored by the pancreas. The hormone insulin is released if it is too high and

the hormone glucagon is released if it is too low. Big Idea 3: Genetics and Information Transfer

-Living systems store, retrieve, transmit, and respond to information essential to life processes.

-Example: An organism’s genome contains the information that determines the sequence of monomers in the organism’s

macromolecules. -Example: A plant opens its stomata when it is light and closes them

when it is dark. Big Idea 4: Interactions

-Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex priorities.

-Example: The interaction between a ligand and its receptor causes a chain reaction of signaling events inside a cell resulting in a

change in the cell’s activity. -Example: The population size of mice influences the population size

of other organism’s in the same region.