Name ______Date ______
Period ______
Thinking About Biology Big Ideas
Since our AP Bio class is focused around several key big ideas and science practices our first exercise will be related to examining a specific specimen from the natural world. Your goal will be to see if you can identify how these ideas relate to your specimen. This is your opportunity to work with others and pull on the collective knowledge each of you already possess.
I will provide you with a specimen. Once you have taken some time to identify what it is, you will start working on the outline below to explore the biological details related to your organism. Remember, you may have only a portion of the specimen. The following outline will guide you in your investigation.
Big Idea 1: The process of evolution drives the diversity and unity of life.
1a. Without considering your specimen at all consider this first big idea . . . How does evolution drive diversity and unity (seemingly opposite ideas)?
2a. Considering your specimen how has it adapted to its environment? How has it dealt with environmental pressures from biotic and abiotic factors?
3a. What is natural selection and what does “fitness” mean in evolutionary terms.
4a. What is a major “take away” that coincides with ecology and biodiversity? In other words, how are the two related?
Big Idea 2: Biological systems utilize free energy and molecular building blocks to grow, to reproduce, and to maintain dynamic homeostasis.
2a. How is your organism utilizing energy (transferring/converting) from the environment? How would you characterize it from an ecological perspective? (where is it in an energy pyramid, type of consumer/producer). Use the appropriate terminology to describe where it fits in the ecosystem from an energy perspective.
2b. The 2nd big idea cites “molecular building blocks”. This is code for something – what are they talking about.
2c. Propose what building blocks you think are present in your specimen. Furthermore, propose appropriate tests you could use to confirm the presence of these building blocks.
Big Idea 3: Living systems store, retrieve, transmit and respond to information essential to life processes.
3a. Big idea 3 centers around the fundamental essence of life. Explain how your organism accomplishes the storage, retrieval, and transmission of this information. You should start your analysis by figuring out what kind of “information” is meant.
3b. In terms of a response from your organism, discuss at least one way your organism may respond to an external stimulus by executing an internal response.
Big Idea 4: Biological systems interact, and these systems and their interactions possess complex properties.
4a. Link your organism as a whole to specific interactions it could have within an ecosystem or even a community. You should be thinking about things like niches, symbiosis, food webs, etc.
4b. Push yourselves to look beyond external interactions mentioned in 4a above and cite at least two specific examples of internal interactions related to your organism.