FINAL UPDATE, FALL 2010 SEMESTER

Parents and Students:

Monday (Dec. 14th) begins the final week of instruction for the Fall Semester. This is a post to give everybody one last 'heads-up' about Finals week in Biology!

First of all, 'A Twist of Fate', an important 100-point project, is due on Friday (12/10), and no late work of any kind will be accepted after Tuesday (12/14)

This assignment is based on a reading describing the scientific detective story that led to the discovery of DNA's structure. The reading is adapted from an article by Michael Lemonick that appeared in the Feb. 17, 2003 issue of Time. That article can be read in its entirety on-line here.

Students are expected to define terms underlined in the article, and to answer four discussion questions according to the usual guidelines: complete sentences that refer to the original question and provide supporting evidence for the student's opinion.

Secondly, students will receive a Study Guide for their 200-point Semester Final on Friday (12/10)

Students should be reviewing it and using it to identify any weaknesses, as well as working to submit any other outstanding work in the course by the end of instruction (Tuesday, 12/14).

Next, there will be a Study Session after-school on Tuesday (12/14).

This Study Session will take place in my classroom (N-63). It will begin at 3:15 and end at 5:30 that evening. Students who attend will not only receive valuable feedback as to what to expect on the test, but will also receive 20 points of extra-credit.

And, finally...Finals! Our scheduled Finals are on (12/15) Wednesday for 1st and 2nd period, (12/16) Thursday afternoon for 4th period and (12/17) Friday for 5th and 6th period.

There is no makeup period scheduled. Students need to attend their final exam period. Those who fail to attend without having their parent or guardian reach a prior understanding with Mr. Hatfield will be given an 'incomplete' in the course.


Finally, the Power Point with notes on DNA and Protein Synthesis is available on-line here:


The Power Point notes are available for download here.

A PDF of the Lecture Guide based on the Power Point notes is available here.

POWER POINT: THE CELL CYCLE

The Power Point summarizing the Cell Cycle, based on the first two sections of Chapter 10, is available here:

UNIT 4: CELLULAR ENERGETICS (NOTES, ANNOUNCEMENTS)

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

The material for our current unit (Unit 4: Cellular Energetics) is detailed and builds heavily on both the material from Ch. 2 (The Chemistry of Life) and Ch. 7 (Cellular Structure and Function).

As such, there are several groups of notes of various sizes for students to access.

First, this Power Point contains an outline of photosynthesis, relating it to the 'Great Circle' of chemical reactions that all living things participate it (autotrophs and heterotrophs!), reactions which recycle the raw materials that life requires. Much of this material is covered in the first two sections of Chapter 8 in the Dragonfly Book.

The Power Point for Photosynthesis, Part I, is available here.

Photosynthesis, Part II provides much more detail about the light reactions, photosystems, the proton pumps that use the enzyme ATP synthase, the electron transport chains that help power those pumps. There is less detail about the 'dark reactions' of the Calvin cycle and other material which is not explicitly part of the state standards. This is covered in Section 8.3 of the Dragonfly Book.

You can download Photosynthesis, Part II here.

A third Power Point is somewhat brief, but has many helpful animations that help describe and explain the structure and function of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the main energy-carrying molecule used by living things.
.The fourth and final Power Point in this unit contains information about cellular respiration, including glycolysis (which takes place in the cytoplasm) and the Krebs Cycle (which takes place in the matrix of the mitochondria). The electrons produced in the Krebs Cycle move through the inner membrane, or cristae, of the mitochondria. The motion of these negatively-charged particles attracts protons (H+), and eventually a high concentration of protons within the membrane is available to drive 'proton pumps' that power an enzyme, ATP synthase, leading to the production of more ATP:

You can download the Power Point for Cellular Respiration here.

HOUSEKEEPING:

I have been forced to modify my syllabus due to the impact of some technology problems in last Wednesday's class and the imposition of a furlough day. Be advised of the following changes:

All of the Unit 4 assignments are due when students return to school after Thanksgiving Break, on Monday, Nov. 29th. This will also be the date for the AFTER-SCHOOL STUDY SESSION (3:15-5:30) for the Unit 4 Test.

The Unit 4 test has been moved back one week, to Tuesday, Nov. 30th. No work from Unit 4 will be accepted after this date. Students who miss their scheduled exam will receive a makeup test.

ATLAS: STILL SHRUGGING?

ATLAS ACCESS!


DEAR PARENTS AND STUDENTS: This is Mr. Hatfield, your student's Biology teacher at Bullard.

I am VERY concerned that many parents and students are still unable to access grades and attendance on-line.

I am therefore providing this blog post with information on district resources now available, but I have also sent the same information out via email. If you did not receive an email with this information, please contact me immediately by sending an email to: epigene13@hotmail.com


Parent ATLAS access is available NOW at http://bhsknights.com.

There is a link on the left side, as shown below:

Unfortunately, many students have either yet to learn how to access ATLAS themselves or have failed to share that information with the home. We have to correct that, immediately!

CELL BROCHURE PROJECT

Many students have not yet completed their 100-point Cell Brochure project.

This is a grave concern. Students who do not complete this are likely to be assigned STUDY HALL and...perhaps....Saturday School. There simply is no excuse for not completing this assignment, which is intended to help students raise their grade.

A link to a PDF file describing the project is available here.

POWER POINT: THE FLUID MOSAIC MODEL OF THE CELL MEMBRANE

You can get the Power Point for 'The Fluid Mosaic Model of the Cell Membrane" here. There are drawings in Chapter 7 of your text, particularly the one on pg. 182, that would be good for students to have completed in their notes. Mr. Hatfield, as always, recommends that students use colored pencils to complete their drawings in their Cornell Notes.

POWER POINT: CELLS AND THEIR ORGANELLES

Here's the link you need to download this Power Point, to use to complete your notes or the Lecture Guide based upon it.

POWER POINT: CARBON, THE BASIS OF LIFE

SPACE

This Power Point is available to download here.

POWER POINT: THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE

Here is the Power Point on 'The Chemistry of Life.' Students received a Study Guide for their Test on Tuesday, Sept. 28th ). They should use that Guide to compare the notes in their composition books with the Power Point notes.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: UNIT TEST 2

IMPORTANT UPDATE: UNIT TEST 2

DEAR PARENTS AND STUDENTS:

This is Mr. Hatfield, your Biology teacher at Bullard. Students, you have an important Unit Test on Tuesday, Sept. 28th. Parents, I know you want to encourage your students, and you need timely updates to make your encouragement effective. So....here's another update!

A Study Guide was given out in class to students on Friday (Sept. 24th) to help them prepare for this test.

In addition, students are eligible to attend a Study Session on Monday afternoon, Sept. 27th, which will use the Study Guide to review the material with the instructor.

Because I have five sections of Biology, participation in the Study Session must be on a first-come, first-served basis and capped at 54 students. The Study Session will begin at 3:15 and last until at least 5:00. Students who attend will receive valuable feedback about the test, but probably the most valuable feedback on how to prepare has already been posted on the course blog, here:

http://biologyknights.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-cope-with-your-next-test.html

Also, I remain concerned that some students and parents are still not able to access on-line grades and attendance via the district's new software. Some information regarding this was previously given on the course blog, here:

http://biologyknights.blogspot.com/2010/09/staying-informed-accessing-atlas.html

Please encourage your student to use the 'COPE' strategies posted on the blog to prepare for their test, particularly the completion of their Cornell Notes.

PLEASE BE AWARE THE STUDENTS WHOSE GRADES ARE BELOW-AVERAGE FOLLOWING THE SECOND TEST MAY BE ASSIGNED STUDY HALL AT LUNCH, AFTER SCHOOL OR ON SATURDAY, AS PER THE COURSE CONTRACT.

Bullard High School

HOW TO "COPE" WITH YOUR NEXT TEST!

There will be a Unit Test on Tuesday, Sept. 28th.

Students who earn a percentage score higher than that earned on the first test can not only expect to earn a higher grade, but they are eligible for grade change on their previous test.

To achieve that, students need to consider the following, using the anagram 'COPE'.

C....(ontent)

Students need to know what's on the test. To make sure that students know what content will be covered on the exam, they need to obtain a copy of the Study Guide, which becomes available on Friday the 24th. The sooner they get this, the better!

O....(rganization)

Students need to plan their time. They need to consider setting aside Monday afternoon (the 27th) in order to attend the Study Session, and they need to consider using time on lunch or after-school on the day of their exam as needed to complete their test. Plan ahead, students!

P...(reparation)

Students need to provide evidence that they have prepared for the test. One way to do this is to attend the Study Session on Monday afternoon, the 27th. Another, powerful way is to make sure that they bring their COMPLETED Cornell Notes to class on the day of the exam. Cornell Notes, if completed, have questions and comments in the margins and summaries of the major sections. Students who have these items completed will be allowed to use them throughout the exam. Bring evidence that you have prepared for the test, students, and you will be rewarded!

E...(ffort)

Students need to finish what they start. There is nothing more important than giving our best effort, all of the time. On an exam day, a good effort means that students attempt everything, even if that means they need to come back at lunch or after school. Show a work ethic, students, and you will not only do better on the test....you will do better in every aspect of your life.

PARENTS, ENCOURAGE YOUR STUDENT TO USE THESE STRATEGIES TO EXCEL!

STAYING INFORMED: ACCESSING ATLAS

ATLAS ACCESS!


DEAR PARENTS AND STUDENTS: This is Mr. Hatfield, your student's Biology teacher at Bullard.

I am VERY concerned that many parents and students are still unable to access grades and attendance on-line.

I am therefore providing this blog post with information on district resources now available, but I have also sent the same information out via email. If you did not receive an email with this information, please contact me immediately by sending an email to: epigene13@hotmail.com


Parent ATLAS access is available NOW at http://bhsknights.com.

There is a link on the left side, as shown below:

Unfortunately, many students have either yet to learn how to access ATLAS themselves or have failed to share that information with the home. We have to correct that, immediately!

I want to also remind students that they have access to MySites through the districts. These automatically provide students two useful resources, online storage and FUSD email. The following procedure allows students to contact their MySites:

BHS MySite Internet Storage

1. Log on to computer with your mysite username and password.

Username: STUDENTS\ ___ ___ ___ ___

Password: firstinitiallastinitialzeroidnumber ___ ___ 0 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

2. Open Internet Explorer

3. Go to http://www.fresnounified.org

4. Click on Sign In – upper right corner

5. Username: STUDENTS\ ___ ___ ___ ___

6. Password: firstinitiallastinitialzeroidnumber ___ ___ 0 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

7. Click on My Site in the upper right corner

8. To upload and store documents, click on Personal Documents folder on the left side

9. Click on Upload, click on browse for the file you saved

10. Click Open and OK and you now have the document saved in your “locker in the sky”


BHS Student Email


Students’ email is:

4characterusername@studentemail.fresnounified.org


____ ____ ____ ____ @studentemail.fresnounified.org


For Students to log in to email:

1. https://studentemail.fresnounified.org/owa

(Notice the “s” on the https)


2. username: STUDENTS\___ ___ ___ ___

3. password: firstinitiallastinitialzeroidnumber ___ ___ 0 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

GET ACCCESS TO ATLAS!

POWER POINT: PROPERTIES OF WATER

You can download it direct from Mediafire here.

If you need the Lecture Guide based the Power Point, you can get that here. But a word of caution: not everything on the Lecture Guide can be found in the Power Point. As with our (blue) handout "Properties of Fluids....Metrically Speaking", much of material is found in Section 2.2 of our text.




space

POWER POINT: ATOMS AND MOLECULES (TAKE TWO)

.

UPDATE: The MediaFire site which hosts files for our blog was recently down for repairs on Sept. 6th, but is now working just fine.

So, students, in case you haven't completed this item, for all my classes, here are the notes on 'Atoms and Molecules.'

****UPDATE****

POWER POINT: ATOMS AND MOLECULES

.

For all my classes, here are the notes on 'Atoms and Molecules.'

****UPDATE****

BIOLOGY STUDENTS AND PARENTS:

One of the problems with the Internet is that it sometimes does not work

As of 10:30 PM this evening, the Mediafire site that hosts our Biology class materials is down. Students who may be attempting to upload the Power Points to review and complete the Cornell Notes for Thursday's exam may not be able to do so.

I will, therefire, be sending out a bulk e-mail to everyone on my class mailing lists with the Power Points attached tomorrow morning from my school site computer. I regret the inconvenience, but students still have all of Wednesday to complete their notes.

If you do not have Power Point installed on your home computer, you can get a free copy of a tiny program that will allow you to view them called (oddly enough) "Power Point Viewer" from this location:

http://download.cnet.com/PowerPoint-Viewer-2007/3000-18483_4-10742145.html

BIOLOGY KNIGHT IN BEE!

Students, I hope you are enjoying your three-day weekend as much as I am enjoying mine.

The Fresno Bee approached me a little over a month ago with the idea of doing an article about my Galapagos experiences.

That article ran in Saturday's Bee and can be viewed on-line here.

The article itself is a pastiche of quotes either collected by the reporter, Ron Orozco, or edited from observations that they asked me to submit. There were some formatting problems with the Bee article that were corrected on-line, but the paper has more still shots from video taken by yours truly. Overall, I was happy with the article.

My Galapagos trip has caused me to more tightly focus my blogging on ways that promote local science education, and I have another blog to support that effort, here.

* Just remember, we have our first test in this course on Thursday, Sept. 9th, with an After-School Study Session the previous afternoon between 3:30 and 5:00 in Room N-63.

* Just remember, we have our first test in this course on Thursday, Sept. 9th, with an After-School Study Session the previous afternoon between 3:30 and 5:00 in Room N-63.

VIDEO: "THE LIVES OF THE STARS"

COSMOS

The following episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, 'The Lives of the Stars', forms the basis of a student homework assignment. Click on the icon below to play the video within the blog:



You can also go to Hulu directly here.

UNIT 1 SYLLABUS NOW AVAILABLE

BULLARD BIOLOGY: MATERIALS AND SUPPORTS

Hello again, this is Scott Hatfield, your student's Biology instructor at Bullard High School!

My thanks to the many parents and students who attended Bullard's 'Back to School Knight" on Monday, August 30th. If I haven't yet had the chance to meet you, then I hope to have the opportunity in the near future.

I have sent parents / guardians an email with three means to access the course. If they have not received an email, please contact me at: epigene13@hotmail.com and let me know, so I can add you to the mailing list.

A copy of the present course syllabus was attached as a PDF file to that email, but you can also download it from the Internet here. Use the syllabus to track your student's progress!

Our first major test is on Thursday, September 9th. Prior to that time, we will have an extra-credit Study Session after school in Room N-63, between 3:30 and 5:00 on Wednesday, Sept. 8th.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about any of these materials or supports!

Sincerely

Scott Hatfield
Biology Instructor
Bullard High School

COSMIC VOYAGE

Biology students will be viewing a 36-minute IMAX video in class and completing a worksheet based on part of the video. The film, 'Cosmic Voyage', was made in 1996 for the Smithsonian Institute and was clearly inspired by a classic science education film called 'Powers of Ten', originally produced in 1977 by the husband-and-wife team of Rae and Charles Eames.

'Cosmic Voyage' approaches the idea of using the metric system, which is based on powers of ten, to explore the question: "What is really large, and really small?" The film first zooms out from an acrobat's ring in St. Mark's Square in Venice, the place where Galileo first trained his telescope on the heavens.


Through 23 powers of ten, we leave first the Earth, then our solar system, then the Milky Way Galaxy behind, until we reach the limit of modern astronomy, where we can see images from about 13 billion years past.


Reversing course, the video then zooms in on drop of water in the Dutch town of Delft, where Antonie Van Leuuwenhoek first trained his early microscope to discover the hidden world of microbes.



As we zoom in on a paramecium, we penetrate its cell nucleus, then zoom in on a molecule of DNA.


Within that molecule is a carbon atom, and the world within that atom is mostly empty space! Within the atom, the atomic nucleus contains virtually all of an atom's mass, made of particles called protons and neutrons. These, in turn, are formed from even smaller particles called quarks.

The film continues with a discussion of the search for a fundamental theory in physics through the use of particle accelerators like Fermilab, along with an overview of the likely "recent" events that led to our sun, our solar system, the Earth and life itself.

Here, presented on YouTube, is the first segment (Chapter 1) of the film who wish to review the material or share it with others. As the narrator (Morgan Freeman) intones, 'we are all travelers on a voyage of discovery!' Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 can be assessed at YouTube directly or by clicking on the hyperlinks

POWER POINT NOTES: THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

Students! Here is the Power Point for the notes on 'The Nature of Science'. You will receive a Lecture Guide based on these Notes sometime this week! If you don't have Power Point on your computer, don't worry . . . you can download a free program, Power Point Viewer, to see the notes!

THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

POWER POINT NOTES: THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

Students! Here is the Power Point for the notes on 'The Nature of Science'. You will receive a Lecture Guide based on these Notes sometime this week! If you don't have Power Point on your computer, don't worry . . . you can download a free program, Power Point Viewer, to see the notes!

KEEP IN MIND...this year, in Mr. Hatfield's Classes, we will try to reduce the amount of class time spent taking notes. There are dozens of standards to cover, hundreds of vocabulary terms and other items to master. We need to decrease the amount of time spent in lecture so students can have more time to do activities. Remember: we want to engage as many different parts of the brain as possible, and to do that, we need to have more time to do things other than notes.

At the same time, your Cornell Notes must be complete (all the notes, original questions and comments in the margins, your name/date/course on every page, and summaries of major sections of notes). Therefore, it is the student's responsibility to download and complete any notes that they were not able to finish in class!!

THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

POWER POINT: INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGY

You can download the first set of notes covering Rules, Policies, Procedures and Steps at this link.

MY SUMMER VACATION

As some students may be aware, I am planning on taking coursework in the Galapagos Islands in July. This is part of a program in which I will earn units in both the Geology and Biology of the Galapagos. Beyond making what is in effect the biological equivalent of a pilgrimage, I am hoping that what I see and experience will make me a more effective instructor in Biology, particularly as regarding evolution and natural selection.

I don't intend to stop there, however. I want to be able to document my voyage of discovery and bring into the classroom---not just my own future classes, but to the Central Valley as a whole.

After all, evolution isn't something

that's confined to exotic locations!

Isolating mechanisms, changing environments, patterns of selection and diversification are going on throughout the world, including the Central Valley. I want to bring an awareness of what's happening right here to my students, so that they can see evolution at work in their parks, their orchards, their forests and even their urban settings.

What , for example, could possibly be more motivating to students that to learn that real-life examples of natural selection in action are be studied just a few miles away from where I teach, in Millerton Lake?

Photo: Katie Peichel, Pam Colosimo, and David Kingsley (HHMI and Stanford University)

Outstanding research by David Kingsley and his associates has documented how genetic changes in stickleback fish in different environments have led to recent speciation events in populations that became isolated when global sea levels fell during the last Ice Age. Placed in refugia that lacked the predators experienced by marine populations, the pressures to maintain the dorsal spines that give these fish their name was relaxed, and the energetic costs of maintaining these spines asserted themselves.

That's the sort of connection I want to help foster, but to make that connection especially vivid we need to relate our surroundings to the familiar example of the Galapagos, the "workshop of Nature" found in our textbooks. Doing that means creating specific content, hopefully vivid and memorable, that brings the Galapagos to the Valley---so that we can then discover the connection, in effect Finding OUR Galapagos.

FINAL ESSAY DUE SOON: INSTRUCTOR CONCERNED

OK!

Dear Parent or Guardian:

Many students have yet to submit their Final Essay in Biology.

This is very serious, because the assignment is so heavily-weighted that failure to attempt it will almost certainly drop students at least one letter grade and may well lead to failing the course. Please make sure your student attempts this assignment.

Other students have submitted an earlier draft, but (as you might imagine) such drafts are usually not good enough to earn a passing grade the first time through. One of the objectives of this assignment, in fact, is to force students to rewrite. Please encourage your student to take advantage of the opportunity to rewrite, and thus improve their grade.

As you might guess, grading student essays is very time-consuming. As a result, I need to impose a cutoff for final draft submission:

Tuesday, June 8th, 4:00 PM

No drafts will be accepted after this date.

More information about this assignment is available on the class blog here:

http://biologyknights.blogspot.com/2010/05/down-home-stretch.html

POWER POINT: BEYOND DARWIN

BEYOND DARWIN!

Here's a novel thought: instead of being taught as mindless, slavish dogma, evolutionary biologists have been busy in the last 150 years. They've been testing, retesting, modifying and in some cases rejecting aspects of Darwin's theory. This Power Point explains some of the major innovations, which (by the way) are all in the textbook:


Students who need to download the Power Point to complete their notes, and the Lecture Guide based on it, can do so here.


We've just finished these notes, and many of these ideas are important in some of the potential essay topics that students should already be working on, so those students especially will want to get up to speed. Students will receive a Lecture Guide based upon these notes TODAY!

BEYOND DARWIN

You can get the Power Point by clicking here!

DOWN THE HOME STRETCH

Students received a Syllabus today for our final unit of the year:

UNIT 10: BEYOND DARWIN: EVOLUTION, OURSELVES

As the name suggests, we will be going beyond the basics of evolution and natural selection studied in Unit 9. The most important task for all students in this final unit will be the completion of drafts of an Essay based upon a topic chosen by students, with a matching scoring rubric.

This Essay has the following goals:

• allowing students to pursue and investigate a topic in evolutionary theory, and (if they desire) exploring other points of view where that topic is concerned

• rehearsing some of the skills required for college papers (appropriate use of sources, APA-style bibliography and citations)

• giving students opportunity to write, and re-write, multiple drafts...the key to good writing, as with so many things, is skill rehearsal

• providing a structured assignment that rewards a high level of achievement with a significant number of points at the end of the semester, in effect a vehicle for students who want a meaningful opportunity to raise their grade.

I encourage students and parents to discuss the benefits and challenges of this assignment. First drafts should've been already submitted in writing or attached to an email:

(epigene13@hotmail.com).

They should be submitted either as Word documents or as PDF files.

CST STUDY SESSION

Parents and Guardians:

My biology students have an opportunity to attend an extra-credit Study Session on Tuesday, April 27th, between 3:15 and 5:30, in Room N-63.

This is on a first-come, first-served basis. Students who attend will work on packets to help them prepare for their Science CST given the following day (Wed. the 28th).

Please encourage your students to consider attending!

SHOW ME A WALKING FISH!

SHOW ME A WALKING FISH

This is the Power Point to go with Rubric Exercise 2, "Show Me A Walking Fish!" Use it to write an essay that addresses the following questions:

1) In your opinion, do transitional forms really exist? Why or why not?

2) Are the examples in this article truly transitional forms? How do you know?

3) If transitional forms exist, would they “prove” that living things share common descent?

4) How would a believer in ‘special creation’ explain the similarities between a coelocanth, a lungfish and an axolotl?



SHOW ME A WALKING FISH

EXTINCTION! (THE VIDEO)

EXTINCTION

Part of this video was shown in class and part during lunch for extra credit in the week before Spring Break. 'Extinction!' is Episode 3 from NOVA's 'Evolution' series (2001). If you missed it, here's a summary of the video:


"The video begins with paleontologist Peter Ward hunting for Permian fossils in South Africa's Karoo Desert, and relates ecological pyramids (which are like a 'house of cards') to mass extinctions, which are believed to be rare but important events in the history of life. It then follows the work of American Museum of Natural History researcher Michael Novacek in building the fossil record of small, shrew-like mammals from the Mesozoic, representative of the lineage that will survive the next mass extinction (the K/T event), which will claim the dinosaurs. It concludes with an examination of the role of human activity in accelerating the rate of extinction, with important attention to conservationists like Alan Rabinowitz."

I do not have enough class time to review this with students again, but students who need to review it can either go to Google Video, or watching it embedded here:



EXTINCTION

POWER POINTS: 'DEEP TIME' AND 'DARWIN'

The Power Point Lecture Notes on 'Deep Time' are available

The Power Point Lecture Notes on 'Deep Time' are available here.

A PDF of the Lecture Guide based upon those notes can be downloaded here.

The Power Point Lecture Notes on 'Deep Time' are available here.

Here's the Lecture Notes.

Here's a PDF file of the Lecture Guide based upon the notes.

The title, incidentally, is taken from the Daniel Dennett book which also inspired a two-hour episode of the NOVA 'Evolution' series. We will end up seeing the whole thing in class on Wednesday. Here's a link to view the whole thing on-line, here.

POWER POINT: DIVERSITY AND CLASSIFICATION

These notes were given to students on March 19 and 22nd. The Power Point on "Diversity and Classification" can be uploaded here.

The Lecture Guide based on the Power Point can be found as a PDF file here.

POWER POINTS: CLIMATE AND ENERGY

Ozone Shield


Oceans and Climate





Global Climate Change

Fossil Fuels

POWER POINTS: THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

In order of appearance in lecture:

In order of appearance in lecture:

Human Body Systems



The Nervous System




The Neuron




The Nerve Impulse


The Sensese
arance in lecture:

POWER POINT: BIOTECHNOLOGY

The Power Point with the Notes on Biotechnology is available here.

Students who have lost their original Lecture Guide and need to get another copy can download the Guide as a PDF file here.

Also, students have a major Poster Project due on Tuesday's class on human genetic disorders. On that same day after school there will be a Study Session for our next Unit Test, which is on Wednesday, March 3rd.

POWER POINT NOTES: HUMAN HEREDITY!

The Power Point Notes for Human Heredity are available here.

STUDENTS: Please remember that you have a major 100-point project DUE on Tuesday, March 2nd. This is a GROUP project that you need to research and put together your responses to questions before Monday, March 1st. Monday is the ONLY in-class work day you will be given for the poster project.

POWER POINT: MUTATION!

Here's a link to our recent notes on 'Mutation!'

A PDF of the Lecture Guide based upon the Power Point is available here.

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY!

Big doings in our Biology class this week....!

First of all, students should've handed in their Mendelian Genetics Booklet on Friday the 29th. Many students have yet to do this task, which creates an artifact to help them on their....

UNIT TEST, which is this Friday, February 5th.

Students who don't complete their Booklet may be assigned Study Hall. More importantly, they might be at a serious disadvantage on their....

UNIT TEST, which is this Friday, February 5th.

Students should also be aware that there will be an After-School Study Session on Thursday, Feb. 4th, between 4:15 and 6:00. Students who participate will earn credit in the course and get questions answered about the content and format of their....

UNIT TEST, which is this Friday, February 5th.

In other words, this week, everything is leading up to the first test of the semester and the prepared student will plan accordingly.

MENDELIAN GENETICS BOOKLET

Parents and Students:
An important project ('Mendelian Genetics Booklet') is due on Friday the 29th (tomorrow). Students should have a pink handout describing the project.

If, for some reason, students lose this handout, it is available as a PDF file here.

Our class has already spent part of three periods assembling and labeling the basic parts of th booklet. Now it's up to the student to complete this assessment!

LIFE'S GREATEST MIRACLE

Students watched the opening two segments of the NOVA program 'Life's Greatest Miracle' in class on Tuesday. This is helpful for understanding the special form of cell division called meiosis, and how the 'crossing-over' of chromosomes helps generate genetic variation.
You can watch it online here!

POWER POINT: MENDEL'S EXPERIMENTS

Here's the link that will take you to the Power Point containing the notes I've given in class on Mendel's experiments, probability and meiosis. The Lecture Guide (available here as a PDF file) is based upon these notes.