AP bio summer prep for next year

[daijobu]

My dd is taking AP biology her sophomore year and wants to do some preparation this summer.  She hasn't had high school biology, but she did take AP chemistry her freshman year (this year) and is doing well.  

 

Is there anything particularly difficult in AP biology that she could get a handle on now?  Memorize the Kreb's cycle?  Learn how a kidney works?  Study the difference between transcription and translation?  

[LisaKinVA]

edx has an onramp to AP Bio. It's a two week course, I think focusing on some technical knowledge that will be used in labs. There is a bit of content, and while not difficult, I do plan on my daughter also pre reading the text the summer prior to taking the course.

[AFwife Claire]

Does she have access to any other regular high school biology textbook?  I think reading through that would be helpful.  I can't imagine pre-reading the big Campbell textbook!  You don't have to memorize the Kreb's cycle or anything like that, but you do have to have a lot of foundational understanding so that you relate concepts to other concepts and to the "Big Ideas" of the AP biology framework.  The redesign of the exam a few years back really took the emphasis off of rote memorization and regurgitation.

 

Also, there are a lot of excellent books that many AP biology teachers have their students read the summer before, like Survival of the Sickest, The Sports Gene, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Violinist's Thumb, Your Inner Fish, and others.  I've read the first 4 I listed, and I can highly recommend them.  My students still refer back to them when they see relevant news articles or whatever!  Books like those can be helpful for developing a big picture understanding of the concepts, and these ones are well-written and interesting.

[Grantmom]

I don't have any great advice but just wanted to say I think this is a great idea. I think doing some of the memorizing could be helpful. Maybe you could look for resources that help you understand the basics of why/how things are named and tricks for memorizing. Just be sure it's stuff that is actually in AP Bio.

 

I think that Miller Levine bio text, the one with the parrot on it, is really cheap on the iPad. I bought it a couple of years ago for like $15 and its very nice.

 

I just looked on my iPad and remembered that I also downloaded the E O Wilson's Life on Earth series, and I think it was free. Might be fun to just have some resources like that to browse through. I have no idea if either of those have material from AP Bio or not.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Grantmom

[Grantmom]

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the best book! I think there was some adult stuff in there, I don't remember now. But it is so good!!

 

I like the idea of linking literature with science study. I think we might do this!

[AFwife Claire]

In thinking about this more, rather than trying to pick random things to memorize (that you might not even need to know), I would spend the summer beefing up on basic chemistry (chemical bonding, properties of water, properties of carbon, and the 4 types of organic macromolecules).  Many AP teachers (including me) have the students cover those chapters of Campbell over the summer, so we aren't wasting precious class time on what should be review. 

 

Also, if you have a basic understanding of photosynthesis and cellular respiration, that would be good.  I DON'T mean memorizing each compound or enzyme!  Just knowing the basic steps, what comes out of them, etc.

 

Another thing to spend time on is basic genetics (Punnett squares and laws of probability as well as mitosis/meiosis, DNA replication, transcription, and translation).   If you have the basics of these concepts down, then when you go deeper, it's just not as hard, and this is a really important unit.

 

Off the top of my head, these would be the most important areas to bone up on before hand, for what it's worth.