Online Programs

What we'll do

We’ll use virtual interactives, short videos, an online textbook, hands-on labs completed from a lab kit, discussion boards with other students, and quizzes/tests. Your instructor will provide detailed feedback on written assignments.

What we’ll learn

• That evolution is a change in the genetic makeup of a population over time, with natural selection as its major driving mechanism
• The ways biological systems interact from the molecular level to the ecosystem level; how they use energy and molecular building blocks to grow, reproduce, and maintain dynamic homeostasis
• How organisms respond to changes in their environment at the molecular, cellular, physiological, and behavioral levels
• The ways that living systems store, retrieve, transmit, and respond to information essential to life processes, and how genetic information provides for continuity of life, and, in most cases, is passed from parent to offspring via DNA

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Use written explanation, models, and visual representations to justify scientific arguments based on analysis of organisms’ struggle to survive in relation to natural selection, environmental changes, and human-induced events on the evolution of organisms, populations, and ecosystems
• Quantify chemical reactions that explain how energy is transformed, transferred, and stored to be used by organisms in response to their environment and to maintain homeostasis
• Model how energy deficiencies are detrimental to individual organisms, disrupt populations and ecosystems, and can cause distinct selective pressures
• Evaluate how information is stored, retrieved, and transmitted in living systems through heritable genetic information and nonheritable cellular communication, interdependent organism systems, and populations
• Analyze the biocomplexity and diversity of characteristics in biological systems from the molecular to the ecosystem level, expressing how this contributes to robust biological systems, greater resiliency, tolerance, and response to changes in the environment
• Demonstrate scientific biology practices in lab experiments that include determining scientific questions and methods, representing and describing data, performing statistical tests, and other mathematical calculations
• Demonstrate critical written scientific skills in lab reports that include visual representations of biological concepts, processes, and models, as well as analysis and interpretation of data to justify scientific arguments using evidence

How we'll measure learning

Students will be assessed during each unit using homework questions, discussions, hands-on laboratory experiments with written lab reports, and a unit test. There will be a midterm and final exam composed of past AP exam questions. All assignments are graded with rubrics and answer keys and detailed feedback is provided. This course is aligned to College Board standards for AP Biology as well as the Next Generation Science Standards for High School Life Science.