The first month...
Crazy to think that we have been in school for a month already! We began the year with bio-chemistry which is not one of my personal favorites, but not something that I hate either. I love the inquiry based labs of the new curriculum compared to the old dirty dozen, and enzymes really lend themselves to some good ole inquiry. I don't use the lab from the College Board, but rather I use a lab that I modified from the late Kim Foglia (who was the creator of Explore Biology) which uses the catalase found naturally in common bakers yeast as the enzyme (the lab can be found here).
Before they design their labs the kids have to watch my YouTube introductory video about the lab so they know what to expect. They submit their proposed procedures about enzymatic activity in their online lab notebooks via Google Drive. After I give some feedback, they revise them, and come into class ready to go on lab day.
This year, my Director of Curriclum, Danielle, generously got the science department some Vernier Lab Quest's and a ton of probes that can be used by any teacher in the department. I had enough probes for two of the 5 lab groups to use, so they were able to modify their procedures accordingly.
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| Just look how much fun these three are having in AP Bio! |
Got some good results, and got some results that we weren't expecting, but it's all good! It will lead to some great analysis sections in their lab reports which I will be ripping apart...ahem...I mean reading this week.
We've also gotten into some cell membrane stuff. Structure, function...all of that good stuff. Then comes water potential. I've found over the years that students tend to have some trouble understanding what exactly water potential is.
I use two videos as my anticipatory set, without even mentioning the dreaded water potential. The first video is an advertisement for the product LifePack which is an emergency water filtration system. This uses solute potential to draw water across a membrane to filter it.
The next video is a Ted Talk by Michael Pritchard who invented something called the Life Saver Water Filter, which uses pressure to force the water across the membrane. I found that using these two videos to discuss how the water is filtered differently really helped to introduce the topic of water potential. If you are having trouble with water potential...give these videos a try. After suffering for years on the topic I think I finally got it right!
So that is where we are now. Going to introduce the diffusion and osmosis lab this week. Kind of a lame first post, but give me a break, it's my first one! Feel free to share with other AP Bio teachers if you think it could be useful!
#bioneverstops
