Curriculum Content

Honors Biology is one of the first science classes that a student will take that can be challenging for them. If they are taking it as an incoming freshmen, it could also be their very first high school science course!  Students will spend their days investigating life and how organisms interact with each other and their world.   Students are also introduced to lab procedures that are necessary for higher level sciences and college level classes.  Throughout the course, students will have to think critically to come to conclusions, find solutions, and will make connections between pieces of knowledge they learned in pre-requisite science classes and knowledge learned in this class.

Standards and Objectives  

Extensions to prepare for AP Biology: 

Student-directed & Teacher-directed of in-depth coverage of all essential standards.

The following standards are the 

AP Biology Big Ideas & Enduring Understandings- In Biology  Honors we will touch on all of these standards so the students start with a strong understanding before they begin the class.  Once in AP Biology, we will expand on the concepts and make the connections between them.

Big Idea 1: The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life

• Enduring understanding 1.A: Change in the genetic makeup of a population over time is evolution.
• Enduring understanding 1.B: Organisms are linked by lines of descent from common ancestry    
• Enduring understanding 1.C: Life continues to evolve within a changing environment.
• Enduring understanding 1.D: The origin of living systems is explained by natural processes  

Big Idea 2: Biological systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, to reproduce and to maintain dynamic homeostasis

• Enduring understanding 2.A: Growth, reproduction and maintenance of the organization of living systems require free energy and matter 
• Enduring understanding 2.B: Growth, reproduction and dynamic homeostasis require that cells create and maintain internal environments that are  different from their external environments   
• Enduring understanding 2.C: Organisms use feedback mechanisms to regulate growth and reproduction, and to maintain dynamic homeostasis    
• Enduring understanding 2.D: Growth and dynamic homeostasis of a biological system are influenced by changes in the system’s environment.
• Enduring understanding 2.E: Many biological processes involved in growth, reproduction and dynamic homeostasis include temporal regulation  coordination

Big Idea 3: Living systems store, retrieve, transmit and respond to information essential to life processes

• Enduring understanding 3.A: Heritable information provides for continuity of life.
• Enduring understanding 3.B: Expression of genetic information involves cellular and molecular mechanisms.
• Enduring understanding 3.C: The processing of genetic information is imperfect and is a source of genetic variation.
• Enduring understanding 3.D: Cells communicate by generating, transmitting and receiving chemical signals.
• Enduring understanding 3.E: Transmission of information results in changes within and between biological systems.

Big Idea 4: Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex properties

• Enduring understanding 4.A: Interactions within biological systems lead to complex properties.
• Enduring understanding 4.B: Competition and cooperation are important aspects of biological systems.
• Enduring understanding 4.C: Naturally occurring diversity among and between components within biological systems affects interactions with the environment

 Curriculum Plan:

   Please go to documents to find the course syllabus and click here to access Parent Curriculum Documents

Instructional Materials and Methods

Students will receive additional instruction and modified assignments in reference to the extension topics.  They will be responsible for the general biology curriculum as well as mastery of the extension topics.

Through Honors Biology, students will be performing:

• Modified Assignments
• Inquiry-based laboratory activities
• Projects that require creative thought to solve the problem