BIOLOGY FINALS WEEK: PROJECT, STUDY SESSION, EXAM SCHEDULES, NOTES

Parents and Students:

Monday (Dec. 12th) began 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 (12/16), and no late work of any kind will be accepted after Monday (12/19)

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 (12/16)

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 (Monday, 12/19).

Next, there will be a Study Session after-school on MONDAY (12/19).

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 up to 40 points of extra-credit.

And, finally...Finals! Our scheduled Finals are on (12/20) Tuesday for 4th period, (12/21) Wednesday afternoon for 5th and 6th period.

There is no significant makeup period, as the above schedule shows. Students need to attend their final exam period if they want significant time for their Final. 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.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: FINAL NOTES

You can access the Final Power Point by clicking on the image below:

BIOLOGY: FINAL SYLLABUS, FALL 2011

Parents, Students:


Please note the critical dates for the Project ("A Twist of Fate"), the 40-point extra credit Study Session on Monday, Dec. 19th, and the sizeable point total of the Semester Final that students will take on either Tuesday or Wednesday of that same week.

BIOLOGY: POWER POINTS FROM NOVEMBER

In November, our Biology classes covered material on how cells obtain, store and release energy. During that time, there were several groups of notes of various sizes for students to access.

First, this Power Point (previously given) 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:

SATURDAY SCHOOL was held on Dec. 3rd, in Room N-63, between 8:45 and 11:30. Students who attended received a packet of illustrations to color and label based on materials from chapters 7-9 (cell membrane, transport, animal and plant cells, photosynthesis) as well as a diagram on DNA.

Students also received (in advance) the Final Project for the fall semester, a handout called "A Twist of Fate" based on an article that appeared in TIME magazine to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA's structure. The original article can be viewed on-line here; the text has been modified to emphasize vocabulary development and will challenge students to analyze a test case of science as actually practiced by real men and women.

NEW SYLLABUS: CELLULAR PROCESSES, PART 1

The image below details assignments from November and till the end of this week.

Please note that it also has information about Saturday School, Dec. 3rd, between 8:30 and 11:45, in our room, N-63 on the Bullard campus. Students who attend will earn opportunities to raise their course grade.

There will be no Unit Test in November. We will finish this Unit, and launch immediately into "Cellular Processes, Part 2".

Please also note that there will be a Study Session for the Biology Semester Final, held on Monday afternoon, Dec. 19th. Students should plan ahead in order to attend, as space will be limited.

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #11: PHOTOSYNTHESIS, PART 1

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.

A PDF file of the Lecture Guide based on that Power Point can be downloaded here.

The Lecture Guide based on these notes is due MONDAY, November 28th!

BIOLOGY ALERT!

Failure levels in my three Biology sections are unusually high for this point of the year.

With that in mind, I have given students a 100-point project ("A Travel Brochure to the Cell"), in which they make a brochure, graded on a Rubric.

Students also have a major test on Wednesday, with a Study Session after school today, as per the syllabus previously given.

Students who are failing the course by more than ten percent, or who are failing but have failed to attempt the Project designed to help them raise their grade, will be assigned SATURDAY SCHOOL.

The first such Saturday School is THIS Saturday, Nov. 12th, between 8:00 and 11:45 in Room N-63.

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #10: THE CELL CYCLE

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

BIOLOGY: ALERT!

Failure levels in my three Biology sections are unusually high for this point of the year.

With that in mind, I have given students a 100-point project ("A Travel Brochure to the Cell"), in which they make a brochure, graded on a Rubric.

Students also have a major test on Wednesday, with a Study Session after school today, as per the syllabus previously given.

Students who are failing the course by more than ten percent, or who are failing but have failed to attempt the Project designed to help them raise their grade, will be assigned SATURDAY SCHOOL.

The first such Saturday School is THIS Saturday, Nov. 12th, between 8:00 and 11:45 in Room N-63.

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #9: THE FLUID MOSAIC MODEL OF THE CELL MEMBRANE

For students who still need to complete the previous Unit notes, please look at the previous post on 'Cells and Their Organelles" as well as this one. CLICK ON THE IMAGE IF YOU NEED THESE NOTES!


POWER POINT: THE FLUID MOSAIC MODEL OF THE CELL MEMBRANE

BIOLOGY SYLLABUS, UNIT 3

This is the list of assessments in our present Unit, Unit 3. This Unit ends on Tuesday, Nov. 8th, with another Unit Test.


STUDENTS AND PARENTS: PLEASE NOTE!

All students have a major project (their Cell "Travel Brochure") due on Monday, October 31st. It is worth 100 points, and intended to help them raise their grades.

STUDENTS WHO ARE FAILING THE COURSE BY MORE THAN TEN PERCENT MAY BE ASSIGNED SATURDAY SCHOOL ON NOV. 12th

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #8: 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.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE POWER POINT #6: "DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA"

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.

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #7: "CARBON THE BASIS OF LIFE"

SPACE

This Power Point is available to download here.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: "EXTINCTION!"

EXTINCTION Tuesday and Wednesday's classes featured excerpts from 'Extinction!', which is Episode 3 from NOVA's 'Evolution' series (2001). 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.


Students have been given a worksheet based upon this video as homework, which is due on Monday. I encourage students to watch the video in its entirety for themselves if there are points that they don't get in class. We simply do not have enough class time to review this, but I know many students will want to see the whole story again, either by going to Google Video or watching it here:

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE POWER POINT #5: "DEEP TIME"

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.

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #6: THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE

Here is the Power Point on 'The Chemistry of Life.' Students will receive a Lecture Guide based on this Power Point in Monday's class.

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #5: ACIDS AND BASES

HEY!

Here is the link to the Power Point on acids, bases and the pH scale.

BIOLOGY SYLLABUS, UNIT 2

This is the list of assessments in our present Unit, Unit 2. This Unit ends on Thursday, Oct. 13th, with another Unit Test.



STUDENTS AND PARENTS: PLEASE NOTE!

On the day of the exam, students should have their Cornell Notebooks with all their current notes completed.


"Completed", in this case, means that they have the following:

1) The page heading on every page, with the student's name, the course (Biology), and the date notes were taken;

2) 3-4 original Questions or Comments written in an extended margin, on every page;

3) Original summaries at the end of each section of notes. For this unit, there will be four sections of notes: Atoms and Molecules, Properties of Water, Carbon: The Basis of Life and The Chemistry of Life


Further, on the day of the exam, students should plan on using additional time, either during LUNCH or AFTER SCHOOL, or BOTH. Afternoon classes (5th and 6th) would be especially advised to begin their test early, during LUNCH


Finally, prior to the exam, there will be an AFTER-SCHOOL STUDY SESSION in Room N-63, based upon a Study Guide given the previous week. This will go from 3:15 - 5:30, on Oct. 13th. Students earn extra credit by participation, and are eligible for grade change if they attend and take advantage of the above strategies in terms of completing their Notes and using additional time, as needed, on Exam Day.

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.

SYLLABUS, UNIT 1

This is a list of all assignments in the course other than in-class quizzes given between August 22nd and Sept. 18th. We are now in Unit 2, on Atoms and Molecules. The next unit syllabus will appear in a post later this week on the Course Guidelines page. This post also appears on the blog main page, but in the future, syllabus posts will only appear on the Course Guidelines page.

In the meantime, click on the image below for a higher-resolution view:

BIOLOGY POWER POINT #3: ATOMS AND MOLECULES

. UPDATE: We are now in Unit #2. A new syllabus should be available both as a handout and on-line by the end of this week.

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

****UPDATE****

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE POWER POINT #4: DIVERSITY AND CLASSIFICATION

This is a post just for my Environmental Science students.

These notes were given to students on September 22nd-26th. 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.

HOW TO "COPE" WITH YOUR NEXT TEST!

Today is the day that mid-quarter progress reports will be generated off of ATLAS, and it is also the day that students will have their first tests returned to them. Results of that test were mixed, and often not what they could have been, due to poor student CHOICES.

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 the weekend before the test. The sooner they get this, the better!

O....(rganization)

Students need to plan their time. For the next test, there will be a Study Session after school on the day before the exam (date to be announced later this week). They earn points by attending, and get valuable feedback about what is likely to be covered. In addition to attending the Study Session, students 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 before the next test (date to be announced later this week). 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!

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: POWER POINT #3

This is a post just for my 1st and 2nd period Environmental Science students.

Click on the image above or this link to download the (brief) Power Point, which introduces some basic concepts in ecology and populations, and presents the cycle of activities above, in which the scientific community interacts with the public and governmental agencies.

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

VIDEO: "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, and Chapter 3 can be assessed at YouTube directly or by clicking on the hyperlinks

POWER POINT NOTES: INTRODUCTION TO MR. HATFIELD'S COURSE

Click on the image above to take you to a Power Point that contains information about Rules, Policies, Procedures, and other classroom policies in Mr. Hatfield's classes. This will also contain Mr. Hatfield's outline of the features of Cornell Notes, a major part of this course.

If you do not have Microsoft Office, don't worry, you can still view the Power Point Notes...for free! Simply download Power Point Viewer, a free program of modest size (about 60 MB).

It is vital that you have access to a program that can view Power Points. Lecture in Mr. Hatfield's course will proceed at a brisk pace, and most students will only write down "skeleton notes"....an incomplete outline of the full presentation. Students will need to download the Power Points to complete the full lecture, and they will need to complete the note-taking before they embark upon completing the extended question margins and the summaries of major sections which are key parts of the Cornell Note-taking strategy.

THE STRUGGLE BEGINS

Welcome!

If this is your first time on this blog, then know this:

My name is Scott Hatfield, and my goal is to change the world.

Seriously. Before this blog post is over, you will see some of the evidence that I can provide that shows how I and my students changed the world last year, and you will be challenged to do the same thing.

I'm a high school biology teacher, and this blog is intended to support my curriculum at Bullard High School, in Fresno, California. As such, the main focus of this blog is providing resources for students taking Biology, which in the state of California is a mandated standards-based course.

What does that mean? Several things....

1) Students who expect to earn a conventional high school diploma in the state of California must plan on earning a passing grade in this course, because it is the one standards-based science course that virtually every public high school student will take.

2) As a consequence, virtually every high school student in the state of California will be expected to take a standardized test in Biology at least once during their four years of high school. (Students who take a life science elective or AP Biology may end up taking the test more than once)

3) To do well on the state tests, Biology students must cover all of the required standards that are tested, and this poses a significant challenge. The standards in Biology put a heavy emphasis on breadth of coverage: there are 50 mandatory standards, and 20 optional ones. Whether a course covers a minimum of 50 or a maximum of 70, it must achieve this coverage in less than 150 days of instruction, due to the location of the testing window. Here, for example, is the Fresno Unified traditional calendar for the 2011-2012 academic year:

The school year will run from Monday, August 22nd, and conclude on June 15th. At one point, that defined 180 days of instruction...but that's no longer the case in California. Two dates, shown circled in blue on the image above, have been turned into furlough days, cutting two days of instruction prior to the state tests. Why the bean counters couldn't save school districts dollars by sacrificing days after the state tests is a question above my pay grade, but regardless of why this is happening, the fact is that school districts like FUSD now have 178, rather than 180 days of instruction.

Unfortunately, it's not 178 days prior to the state tests. Note the areas circled in red on the image above. That is the beginning of the state testing window, and these 10 days are when virtually everyone will test, rather than later, due to conflicts with (believe it or not) another round of testing, this time for AP courses. So, when you actually run the numbers, there are 139 days of real instruction prior to the STAR tests. With a total of 70 standards, that's less than two days per standard if you actually tried to cover them all. Even achieving the minimum of 50 standards gives you less than three days per standard, and that's not budgeting any time for review prior to the STAR tests.

4) The academic performance of a California public high school is based, in part, on the scores that students earn on the state's Biology test. That flows downhill from Washington, to Sacramento, to the local district administration, to the classroom teacher. As a high school instructor, I am an agent of government, and the expectation is that I will meet certain benchmarks of performance in order for my school site to receive certain scores where API and AYP are concerned.

Now this may seem like a discouraging way to begin the year, but there is no point in sugar-coating things. The stakes are high: high for students, high for teachers, high for school districts. The challenges are real.

Now the good news. Bullard High School is a good school, and we are working hard to improve our performance. Early returns from the state suggest that we will have the highest API scores in school history. Speaking just for myself, I know that I worked very hard last year, and I saw a dramatic improvement in the number of students scoring in the top two performance levels, even among low-ranking students, in the bottom 15 percent of their class. So, real gains are possible. The students who raised their performance and achieved on the state tests took advantage of the resources made available not just in class, but at home, using the strategies that I taught in the course...including this blog!

So, as you go through the year, bookmark this blog and visit it often!

You will find many resources that will enrich what you learn in class, and which will often be essential to keeping up with coursework in the event you are out of class for any reason. Last year, I had over 13,000 hits on my blog, most of them from my students. That's powerful evidence that using the blog was an important part of student achievement in my course. This was an increase from about 9,600 hits from the 2009-2010 academic year, and I expect this trend to continue. This year, the blog will expand from a single page to groups of linked pages, to provide even more continuous and detailed support of our class.

So, yes, this will be a challenging course, and as your instructor I am challenging myself to do more to help students succeed. As my student, I hope you will accept this challenge....and help me change the world.

GO KNIGHTS!!!!

(If you are not a California high school student, parent of a student, or instructor, you are welcome to visit my blog and download any resources that I provide here, free of charge. However, please note that all such materials are created by me and should not be used outside of an educational setting without permission or appropriate attribution.)

POWER POINT #9: 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.

POWER POINTS #7 and #8: MUTATION, BIOTECHNOLOGY

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

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

The Power Point with the Notes on Biotechnology is available here. All students will need to download the entire Power Point in order to finish the Lecture Guide, so make sure you do it!

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

POWER POINT #6: 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.

POWER POINT #5: DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA

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 much of this episode, broken up into chunks, over the next few days, so I thought I would provide a link to view the whole thing on-line, here.

SUMMER SCHOOL VIDEO: EXTINCTION!

EXTINCTION Thursday's class featured excerpts from 'Extinction!', which is Episode 3 from NOVA's 'Evolution' series (2001). 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.


Students have been given a worksheet based upon this video as homework, which is due on Monday. I encourage students to watch the video in its entirety for themselves if there are points that they don't get in class. We simply do not have enough class time to review this, but I know many students will want to see the whole story again, either by going to Google Video or watching it here:

POWER POINT #4: DEEP TIME!

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.

POWER POINT #3: DIVERSITY AND CLASSIFICATION

These notes were given to students on Wednesday, July 6th. 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.

SECOND SESSION: POWER POINTS #1 and #2

The Power Point for Populations and Ecosystems is available here.

This continues the material from Chapters 3-5 that was begun in 'Populations and Ecosystems".

You can download it here.

FINAL POWER POINTS, REMINDERS

The first semester of Summer School Biology is almost complete. Your final will occur on Thursday, June 30th. You will receive a study guide for the final in Wednesday's class, as well as a final Lecture Guide based on "Discovering DNA!"

The most important goal all students should focus on, however, is making sure that their composition books contain all of the course notes, complete Cornell Note-taking style, as this constitutes 50 percent of your grade!

Toward that end....

The Power Point summarizing the Cell Cycle, based on Monday's lecture, is available here:





The notes from Tuesday and Wednesday's lectures, on which the final Lecture Guide is based, are given below:


These Power Point notes are available for download here.

POWER POINT #7: CELLULAR RESPIRATION

The latest 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:

The Lecture Guide on "Cellular Respiration" is due on Monday, June 27th. In the last three days we will be covering a great deal of material: cell division, phases of mitosis/meiosis, DNA structure and function, and an outline of transcription and translation.

FIFTY PERCENT of your course grade is based on your Cornell Notes, which must be submitted after the break on Thursday, June 30th, no exceptions. There will also be a FINAL EXAM on that day. You will receive a study guide from your instructor on Wednesday. Obviously, the pressure is on. You have to maintain your focus in order to complete all this work by the end of class on Thursday!!

POWER POINT #6: PHOTOSYNTHESIS

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.

A PDF file of the Lecture Guide based on that Power Point can be downloaded here.

The Lecture Guide based on these notes is due at the beginning of Thursday's class! We are now halfway through the first semester of summer school!!

POWER POINT #5: MEMBRANE TRANSPORT

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.