AP Biology Summer Assignments 2015/2016
WELCOME TO AP BIOLOGY!!!
We are excited for this upcoming school year and meeting all of you (some seeing you again from previous classes).
Until then, we have some things we want you to do to prepare. The main goal of AP Biology is to develop an
understanding and appreciation of the unifying concepts that connect the major topics of Biology. The AP Biology
Curriculum centers around the four Big Ideas and you will need to not only know these but also understand how they all
relate:
 Big Idea 1: The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.
 Big Idea 2: Biological systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, to reproduce and to
maintain dynamic homeostasis.
 Big Idea 3: Living systems store, retrieve, transmit and respond to information essential to life processes.
 Big Idea 4: Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex properties.
Summer Prep Work:
 Purchase a copy of “5 Steps to a 5” by Mark Anestis (Amazon or another book store will have it) Make sure it’s
the newest addition because the course was redesigned in 2013.
 AP Biology was designed by a select group of college professors and high school science teachers to be
equivalent to an introductory college biology course. Visit the below College Board site to explore what an AP
Biology course is like:
https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/exploreap?affiliatedId=apcentral&bannerId=exploreap1
 AP Biology is a 1 block course. This means that there is going to be extra weight and responsibility put on you as
a student to accomplish a variety of things on your own time to be successful in AP Biology. Please be ready
throughout the year to read, take notes on posted power points, view videos and complete online assignments
to help with your comprehension of the different topics.
 Because vocabulary in this course can be difficult, you need to take some time to review the scientific
Latin/Greek roots that form many of our scientific terms.
o Print out and complete the Biology Prefixes and Suffixes. These should have been learned in PreAP
Biology and regular level Biology so this should just be review.
Summer Assignments:
1. Article Assignment:
a. Read the Flower and the Fly and answer the questions that follow.
2. Movie Assignments:
a. View the movie “Invisible World” by National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZeXCVOnAwA
i. Complete the questions that go with that movie
b. View the movie “What Darwin Never Knew” by PBS NOVA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOHzY1fuOz4
i. Complete the questions that go with that movie
3. Internet Assignments:
a. Access the website www.becominghuman.org
i. Complete accompanying assignment
b. Access the website www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
i. Complete the accompanying assignment
The link at the top of the page is to a google folder that you can access the assignments as well as a copy of this sheet.
Please have a restful, fun and exciting summer… but don’t procrastinate on getting these assignments done. Again we
look forward to working with you all next year!