Preparing for the **New** AP Biology exam

This post is going to be extremely short!  I recently received a newsletter from Carolina Biological that had a great article called, "Earning a 5: Successful Test Taking Strategies for the New AP Biology Exam."  I thought the article was great, and I immediately shared it with all of my students.

If you are a teacher of AP Biology, I think you might find the article useful.  Click here for a link to the article.

Good Luck!!

AP Biology Review PowerPoints are available in  my TpT store.

Enjoying Nature!

We had a gorgeous Saturday in my neck of the woods.  It was sunny and 70 degrees.  I spent the day doing a cemetery clean up project with a local ladies group.  My high school aged daughter joined us, and I enjoyed spending the lovely day out of doors with my daughter and friends.  We raked up many months worth of magnolia leaves from our local historical cemetery.

As we raked, I discovered a very pretty patch of bracket fungi....

The bracket fungi are also called shelf fungi.  They belong to the phylum Basidiomycetes, along with the mushrooms, puffballs, stinkhorns, jelly fungi, smuts and rusts.  Shown in the photos are the fruiting bodies.  They are generally tough and sturdy and produce their spores within pores of the fruiting body.  Most shelf fungi, like many of the fungi, are decomposers, and can easily be found growing on dead trees and other dead plant matter. Other shelf fungi are parasitic, and grow along the sides of living trees.

Also spotted were some lovely lichens growing on the sides of some very old trees.  Lichens are composite organisms.  Two species live together in a lichen in mutualistic harmony.  One of the organisms is a photosynthetic alga, and the other is a species of fungus.  The alga carries out photosynthesis and provides the fungus with food.  The fungus has the ability to absorb water, and provides the algae with an adequate water supply.

Lichens can be found in nearly every habitat on earth.  They are particularly susceptible to environmental changes and are often an indicator of air pollution in an area.  If the lichens are not thriving, there is sure to be a reason.  Lichens are also used to make dyes and perfumes.

Lichens: Informational Text, Critical Reading, and Lab Activity

Who Doesn't Like Free Teaching Materials??

Free!

Free!

Free!

As teachers, this is music to our ears! Every teacher I know, spends part of every pay check buying materials for school.  We buy school supplies such as pencils and paper for those students who never seem to have either.  We buy workbooks, textbooks, and fictional books for our classroom libraries.  We buy snacks and hand over lunch money to the student who "forgot" his.  We pay to take classes and to go to workshops to make ourselves into even better teachers.  For the lab, I am constantly purchasing soap, paper towels, graph paper, colored pencils, seeds, potting soil, plants.....well, this list is never ending.

So what can you get for free??

There are quite a few blogs that offer free teaching materials for teachers.  I would like to tell you about a few that offer free materials for all ages and all subject areas.  I know that there are sure to be many more than those listed here.  But these are the ones I have been personally involved in.

1.  <------  May I start with my own freebies?  Just take a look to the left side bar.  I have a long list of items that you can download for free from my TpT store.

2.  Take a look at the blog called "The Cornerstone".  Angela puts together a monthly link up of free materials.  They are organized by grade level so you can easily find the materials you need.

3.  "Creativity in the Common Core Classroom"  features free materials that are aligned with the common core standards.  A new list of freebies is posted each and every Friday.  These, too, are organized by grade level.

4.  I am proud to be a contributor to "Classroom Freebies."  There are 100 teacher/authors contributing to this collaborative blog.  Everyday, there are so many ideas being posted.  Many are for elementary classrooms, but keep scrolling down because there are quite a few middle and high school contributors.  This blog was so popular that Charity started a second, little sister blog, called "Classroom Freebies, Too!"  It also has a hundred contributors and a tons of freebies.

5.  Next, check out "Taking Grades for Teachers."  Margaret generously features everyone's freebies, but her own, I think.  Each week, Margaret searches and finds great free, downloadable materials and features them on her blog.

I am so grateful to all of these wonderful friends who have listed many of my free items on their blogs.

Now for the biggest source of free materials??  Well, that would be TeachersPayTeachers.com.  As of this writing, there are 85,319 products that are listed for free.  Click this link, then click the big button that says "FREE".

Enjoy!  And Have Fun Teaching!!

Leaf Pigment Chromatography

Leaf pigment chromatography is a classic paper chromatography experiment that allows students to separate and observe the different pigments found in plant leaves. In this leaf pigment chromatography lab, students use chromatography paper and a solvent to see how pigments such as chlorophyll and carotenoids move at different rates, creating distinct bands of color. This chromatography experiment provides a visual and hands-on way for students to connect molecular properties to key biological concepts, including photosynthesis and plant structure.

This paper chromatography lab is especially effective in high school biology classes because it reinforces both content knowledge and essential lab skills. As students analyze the separation of leaf pigments, they practice careful observation, data analysis, and experimental design while gaining a deeper understanding of how plants capture and use light energy. Leaf pigment chromatography is a low-prep, high-impact lab that fits naturally into units on photosynthesis, plant biology, and scientific investigation. 

Check out this blog post on Paper Chromatography for additional photos and information.

Leaf Pigment Chromatography Experiment

Here are photos that I took as my students were working on their lab.

Spinach leaves are placed in a mortar and pestle along with a little acetone.  Students grind the leaves until the acetone turns a dark green.  A small piece of capillary tubing is used to transfer drops of the pigment extract to a piece of chromatography paper.

When enough drops have been placed on the chromatography paper to make a dark green circle on the paper, it is ready to be placed into a large 25x200 test tube.

Leaf Pigment Chromatography Diagram

The large test tube has about 1/2 inch of petroleum ether in the bottom of the tube.  The pigments will immediately begin to separate.

Here is the finished chromatogram:

Pigment Chromatography FAQ's:

What pigments can be seen in leaf chromatography?
Plants contain multiple pigments such as chlorophyll, carotenoids, and sometimes anthocyanins. These pigments separate based on their chemical properties when the solvent moves up the paper. 

Why do pigments appear in different bands?
Pigments travel different distances during chromatography due to differences in solubility and how strongly they bind to the chromatography paper. 

Can this experiment predict fall leaf colors?
Leaf chromatography can reveal hidden pigments, which often correspond to colors visible during autumn. 

Here is the lab that I use with my students:

Click image to view in my TpT store.

AP Biology Exam: Teacher In Panic, Students Oblivious

<-------- The teacher feels 

      like this.....

.....and the students feel 

like this!  ----->

Sound familiar?

It is the time of the year when the AP Biology teacher (me) begins to panic.  There are only "x" number of teaching days left, and there is still "y" amount of material that must be covered!  PANIC!

Actually, my students are great.  But it is getting on toward spring time in my part of the country.  The students are tired....very tired!  They have worked hard all year, participated in a ton of extracurricular activities, and they are just worn out!!

It is a difficult time of the year to be sure.  I must continue to teach hard everyday to get all of the material covered.  At the same time, I need to get my students motivated for reviewing for the exam.  It is a fine line to balance.  Push them hard, but don't overload them.

I am fortunate to have a 70 minute class period. (Don't kill me....I realize how lucky I am!!)  Starting this week, we are going to spend the first 15 to 20 minutes of each class period reviewing.  I have written a set of review PowerPoints to use just for this purpose.  These are not teaching PowerPoints.  They are simply slide after slide of questions and answers.  I generally let the students get into groups and make a game out of it.  The group getting the most questions correct wins a prize.  Little Debbie Snake Cakes are a particular favorite award for my students.

Freebie:  Here is the link to one of my review PowerPoints that I have in my TpT store.  It is on organic compounds.  You can easily delete some of my slides and add more slides of your own.

Click picture to download.

If you like the free PowerPoint, you might be interested in my entire set of 25 different review PowerPoints.

Best of luck to you and your students on the AP exam!!  :)

Daphnia, Daphnia, How do I Love Thee?

Let Me Count The Ways (of Measuring Your Heart Rate!)

Valentine's Day does not have to go unnoticed in our high school biology classes!  We might not discuss the emotional affairs of the heart, but we can definitely discuss the physiology of the heart!

Each year, during the week of Valentine's Day, I take my biology students to the lab to measure the heart rate in the crustacean, Daphnia.  Since Daphnia is an ectotherm, its heart rate will vary with changes in its body temperature.  (I also pass out a few Dove chocolate hearts along with the lab supplies!)

First we place the Daphnia into a small, water-filled chamber like the one seen in this photo.  A few strands of cotton fibers placed in the chamber helps to restrain the Daphnia while viewing!

A Petri dish is filled with ice water, and the Daphnia viewing chamber is placed on top of this ice water to cool the internal body temperature of the Daphnia.  After a minute or two, the Daphnia is placed under a dissecting microscope, and the fun begins!

Some students have difficulty at first, finding the heart.  Since the exoskeleton of Daphnia is clear, the heart is easily seen.  Once the students find the heart, they are ready to start counting the number of heart beats per minute.

After repeating three trials at the ice water temperature, students fill the Petri dish with water that is at room temperature and repeat.  Finally the students fill the Petri dish with warm water to finish the experiment.  The data from the experiment is fairly consistent from year to year, and students can quickly conclude that the heart rate of Daphnia speeds up as the temperature increases.

My favorite part of the experiment comes on the next day!  On day 2 of this lab, I have my students design their own experiment.   They are asked to design an experiment to test the effect of caffeine and alcohol on the heart rate of Daphnia.  The students must state a hypothesis, describe their experimental and control groups, carry out the experiment, collect their data, graph their data, and come to a conclusion based on their data.

For my honors level and AP Biology students, I have them complete this worksheet to determine the Q10 Temperature Coefficient.

This lab, along with all of the worksheets and a teacher guide, has recently been added to my TpT store.  You can view it here:

Measuring the Heart Rate in Daphnia

Biology Careers Mini Posters - A Freebie!

What can you do as a career if you love Biology?

The answer is "Lots and lots of things!!"  Career week is a really big event at my high school.  I was asked to put together a display illustrating some of the many careers that are possible in the field of biology, so I  made a set of 26 mini-posters.  Each poster highlights one career.  There is a picture of a person "doing the career" as well as a very brief description of the career.

I am sharing these as a free download in my TpT store.  

Click on this link ---> Biology Career Posters <--- to download these for free.

These will make a great display in your classroom!