POWER POINT #3: THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE

Here is the Power Point on 'The Chemistry of Life.' Students received a Lecture Guide based on these notes, given on Thursday, June 16th. This Lecture Guide and the worksheet on the video "The Lives of the Stars" are due on Monday, June 20th. Students should also use that Guide to compare the notes in their composition books with the Power Point notes, to make certain that they have all the content mandated by the state standards.

POWER POINT #2: ATOMS AND MOLECULES

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

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:

POWER POINT #1: THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

Students! Here is the Power Point for the notes on 'The Nature of Science'. Your Lecture Guide, given out in class today (Tuesday, June 14th), is due at the beginning of Wednesday's class.

It is YOUR responsibility to complete your Cornell Notes, which are 50 percent of your grade in this course. Due to the large amounts of material that must be covered in a Summer School course, we must move at an accelerated pace. Therefore, when you complete the Lecture Guide, compare the Guide with your Notes. If there are any missing items in either the Lecture Guide or the Note, use the Power Point shown above to fill in the gaps.

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!

It is your responsibility to gain access to this material. Students who are unable to upload the Power Points should contact the instructor immediately via email:

epigene13@hotmail.com

I can either email Power Points to students, or students may bring in a flash drive and I will copy it onto their drives....but it is the student's responsibility to gain access to the material.

POWER POINT: 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!

You can get the Power Point by clicking here!

ALSO....There is a Study Session on Saturday for the FINAL, in Room N-63, between 1:00 - 4:00 PM. Students can earn extra credit in the course and receive helpful hints on how to proceed. Attendance is voluntary.

POWER POINT: '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 weeks, so I thought I would provide a link to view the whole thing on-line, here.

ALERT!

Parents and Students:

The final project of the year in Biology is an Essay. Students have been given a handout with guidelines for writing the paper, and chosen one of four possible topics. This is a guided Essay that requires students to write multiple drafts in order to earn an above-average grade, so it is critical that they produce their first drafts as soon as possible.

And, since the final Project is weighted more heavily than their actual Final, it will be critical to the student's final grade. Students who fail to attempt the Essay Project run the very real risk of failing the course.

Please encourage your student to provide a first draft this week so that they can receive timely feedback, and increase their chances of earning an above-grade on this critical assignment.

ALSO: AP Testing in the library has restricted the access that some students have to computing time at school. I am making recent Power Points and Internet access available on mini-laptops in my classroom at lunch every day this week and the next.