Biology
Biology
Botany
Cell Biology
Classification
Entomology
Environmental Science
Genetics
Human Body
Marine Biology / Oceanography
Microbiology
Ornithology
Zoology
Cool Biology links:
Fundamentals of Biology
Pathology case of the week contest
fabulous animations of many kinds!
OAC Biology Help Page
Carolina Biological Supply
Nature Postcards
Critter Guide
Biology is an enjoyable subject for all ages. Every year we spend approximately 1/2 of our school year studying living things.
AP Biology — Biology: Life on Earth
Botany
We studied this in 2002-03 and 2005-06.
There are many resources to use for this, most importantly the great outdoors! Major topics we covered:
Plants
Books:
Plant (Eyewitness)
How Did We Find Out About Photosynthesis?
Be a Friend to Trees?
The Red Poppy — this is one of the most beautifully illustrated books I’ve ever seen
“Peeking at Plants with a Scientist” (Patricia Murphy)
“Cactus Coloring Book”
“Amazing Plants Coloring Book”
Videos:
Moody Science Adventures: Machines of Beauty
Moody Science Adventures: The Power in Plants
Moody Science Adventures: The Long Journey
Websites:
OAC Biology Help Page
Virtual Plant Cell
Seeds
Books:
All About Seeds
From Seed to Plant
Here a Plant, There a Plant, Everywhere a Plant Plant! A Story of Luther Burbank
Johnny Appleseed: A Poem
Johnny Appleseed: A Tall Tale
We examined various seeds.
We explored the website, Seeds of Change.
Flowers
Books:
A Flower Grows
Tiger Lilies and Other Beastly Plants
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush
The Legend of the Bluebonnet: An Old Tale of Texas
American Wildflowers Coloring Book
Floral Alphabet Coloring Book
We visited a local nursery and looked at many flowers 🙂
We explored the website, CNPS Kids.
Trees
Books:
Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus
The Tree Almanac: A Year-Round Activity Guide
Tree (Eyewitness)
While a Tree Was Growing — this ties history in with the growth of a giant Sequoia — very interesting!
The Man Who Planted Trees
The Giving Tree
The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest
We explored tree rings using a Tree Ring Kit.
Ferns
We transplanted ferns that were growing in our yard, and examined their fronds.
Websites:
Green and Growing
Missouri Botanical Gardens
Vegetables
We planted a vegetable garden from seeds (peas, beans) and small transplants (tomatoes, raspberries–not a veggie, but we did it at the same time!)
Books:
“The Children’s Kitchen Garden”
We have an interesting reference book, Botany in a Day, which is basically a field guide that will assist us in being able to identify most plants in the United States (a lofty goal!). Despite the author’s haphazard explanation of evolution as “fact” and apparent inability to see the hand of the Creator behind the incredible diversity of plants, the book takes a refreshing approach in that the author has identified patterns in plants, which make identification much easier than endlessly leafing through plant guides. The book also lists medicinal purposes for many plants, which could come in handy if we get more adventurous on our camping trips!
Cell Biology
We studied this in 2001-02, 2004-05 and 2007-08.
Cool Cell Biology links:
Cells Alive!
Virtual Cell
Cell games (scroll down to section called “Cells”)
DVDs / videos:
Newton’s Workshop: The “Cell-a-bration”: Cytology
Newton’s Workshop: The Germinators: The Immune System
We enjoyed a *wonderful* series of books by Dr. Fran Balkwill. There are 8 books in the series “Cells and Things” – two are in the section on genetics:
Cells Are Us
shows how an egg and sperm join together then grow to become a baby (from a cell perspective!); discusses skin cells, blood, red blood cells, white blood cells, bones, muscles, nerves
Cell Wars
discusses defender cells (neutrophils, lymphocytes, macrophages), viruses, bacteria, vaccinations, body repair
Germ Zappers
discusses germs, germ-eating cells, bacteria, viruses, vaccination
Enjoy Your Cells
discusses cell cross-sections, cell varieties, womb development, DNA, many types of cells, cross-section of a finger, plant cells, bacteria and yeast cells
Have a Nice Day
Gene Machines
I cannot recommend these books highly enough! It amazed me how much each of the kids learned through these books. They have brilliantly creative illustrations, along with very humorous captions (e.g. a “Natural Killer Cell” says “Make My Day!” then “Give us a kiss!” as the infected cell it’s attacking hisses and dies).
Just for fun, we also watched (several times) the hilarious movie, Osmosis Jones, which tells the story of Frank, a guy whose eating habits and general hygiene leave much to be desired, and the “City of Frank”, a cartoon representation of the billions of cells in his body, starring a white blood cell cop, Osmosis Jones (“There’s been a Jones on the force ever since my ancestors came over on the umbilical cord!”). It is very funny, rated PG for the bodily humor (of course!), and was a great way to wrap up our cell studies. The movie is not meant to be 100% scientifically accurate, but there are plenty of technical details in there along with the fun stuff.
We browsed a more advanced text on cell biology: Basic Concepts in Cell Biology and Histology. It contains hundreds of detailed line drawings to go along with the well laid out text.
We read The Life of a Cell and What’s Smaller than a Pygmy Shrew? The children enjoyed playing the learning games on the links above. We also watched some Newton’s workshop videos:
Cell-a-bration
The Germinator
Classification
We studied this in 2005 – 06.
Cool Websites
World Biodiversity Database — this site documents all known species — wow!
Classifying Critters
Creature Feature
Classification of Living Things
Videos
Newton’s Workshop
The Name Game: Animal Classification
National Geographic Video
The Great Whales
Reptiles and Amphibians
All About Animals–Feathered Friends
Eyewitness
Reptiles
Plant
The Magic School Bus Goes to Seed
Books
Benny’s Animals and How He Put Them in Order (Millicent Selsam)
Classifying Amphibians
Classifying Birds
Classifying Fish
Classifying Flowering Plants
Classifying Insects
Classifying Invertebrates
Classifying Mammals
Classifying Nonflowering Plants
Classifying Reptiles
Animal Classification
We read these books:
Aardvarks to Zebras
The Robot Zoo: A Mechanical Guide to the Way Animals Work
Benny’s Animals and How He Put Them in Order
Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones
The Beginner’s Guide to Animal Autopsy: A Hands-In Approach to Zoology — amazing illustrations
Of Kinkajous, Capybaras, Horned Beetles, Seledangs, and the Oddest and Most Wonderful Mammals, Insects, Birds, and Plants of Our World
Ogden Nash’s Zoo — lots of fun!
We watched the wonderful movie, All Creatures Great and Small.
We explored these websites:
Amazing Animal Facts
Searching the Animal Diversity Web
And of course we visited our local zoo!
We have a reference book, Five Kingdoms, which is a very comprehensive catalog of the world’s living things. If you’re wondering, the five kingdoms are bacteria, protoctists, animals, fungi, and plants. Every known living thing is described at Kingdom, Phylum, Subphylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species level. This is an intimidating topic to cover, but the book seems to present it in a user-friendly way, so I think we will have a lot of fun discovering where many different parts of creation belong.
Entomology
We studied this in 2001-02, 2004-05 and 2007-08.
Cool Entomology links:
Beekeeping
Butterfly Website
Children’s Butterfly Site
Dances With Bees
Invasive Ants
Make an Insect Mask
On the Wings of Insects
Termite Teamwork
Wonderful World of Insects
Yuckiest Site on the Internet
Books:
Our main text was The Practical Entomologist, which is a visually appealing book. It contains “What You Can Do” sections throughout the book, starting with detailed instructions on insect dissection. There are beautiful close-up color pictures throughout.
DK Pocket Book–Insects
DK Pocket Book–Butterflies & Moths
DVDs or videos:
Mystery of the Three Clocks
The Wonder of You; A Mystery Story; A Matter of Taste
Flying on Wings of Beauty; Machines of Beauty; Somewhere Out There
The Power in Plants; Busy as a Bee; It’s a Small World
Basics of Entomology
We learned the basics about what distinguishes insects from other animals, discovered their close relatives, and had a brief look at their anatomy. The children went out one afternoon and captured 8 different specimens, which we “prepared” by placing in the freezer. We dissected a bee, and were amazed at how intricate everything is on such small creatures. The children made a chart containing the 22 largest insect orders and their distinguishing features (e.g. how many wings, kind of mouthparts, etc.). Using their charts will help them to identify what orders any future specimens belong to. We then focused on the eight major orders and learned a little about each one:
Coleoptera [hard wings] (Beetles)
Diptera [two wings] (Flies)
Hemiptera [half wings] (The True Bugs)
Homoptera [same wings] (Aphids, Cicadas, & Hoppers)
Hymenoptera [membrane wings] (Ants, Bees, Wasps, & Kin)
Lepidoptera [scaly wings] (Butterflies & Moths)
Odonata [toothed flies] (Dragonflies & Damselflies)
Orthoptera [straight wings] (Grasshoppers, Katydids, & Crickets)
We also studied the various mouthparts and feeding methods in insects, their wings, and life cycles.
Beetles
To start our week off, we made a beetle habitat using layers of oatmeal and bread, a piece of carrot, and beetle larvae we dug up from the yard. We hope to be able to observe over the next few weeks the cycle of metamorphosis–egg, larva, pupa, adult. We also found “beetle tunnels” in fallen logs, and did crayon rubbings of them. We read a fascinating National Geographic article about Ladybugs. The children made a chart of twenty of the beetle families, and we were able to print several beautiful photographs from the internet of some of these.
Tiger Beetles
Net-winged Beetles
Ground Beetles
Checkered Beetles
Predacious Diving Beetles
Metallic Wood-Boring Beetles
Whirligig Beetles
Click Beetles
Hister Beetles
Fireflies
Rove Beetles
Ladybird Beetles
Carrion Beetles
Darkling Beetles
Stag Beetles
Long-horned Beetles
Scarab Beetles
Leaf Beetles
Soldier Beetles
Weevils
Butterflies & Moths
We hope to find some cocoons to collect, so we can see some moths and /or butterflies make their miraculous transformations (we eventually found some!).
Each of the children made a butterfly life-cycle wheel, and called Paul to each explain the entire process 🙂 They also wrote stories about what a butterfly experiences and might feel like during each of the four stages of its life.
J: “When I wiggled, I felt like I was going to burst. When I discovered I could fly, I was amazed. I saw a bird. He bit me, then he spat me out.”
P: “‘A Big Change.’ I am an egg. I am popping out. Oh, I am so hungry. There’s some food. I am crawling and eating all the food in sight. What was that? Ah! A bird! Take that, bad bird! It is so hard to move. This shedding feels much better. I am full. I am a pupa now. Time to get dressed. I am popping out again. What are these wings for? Something tells me to flap. I CAN FLY! I loved to be a larva, because of eating all the food, food, and more food.”
We watched a beautiful video that gave us a close-up glimpse of metamorphosis in action (A Mystery Story). Another video, Flying on the Wings of Beauty, showed us the amazing migration of the Monarch butterfly. We now want to travel to that remote forest in Mexico in the winter to see the millions of butterflies that settle there.
Our area has had a very “slow” year for butterflies, so we visited a local park and attempted to find more specimens there. Our search was rather fruitless, but we did manage to get lost on the trail, and P and I also managed to lose everyone else when we went back for the car (after the trail ended up at an unknown parking lot) and realized my cell phone was dead. Thankfully we all found each other before it got dark!
We are planning to plant some plants this fall that will attract more butterflies to our yard. The list we are working from includes these varieties (common names):
alfalfa apple aspen aster
bee balm beggar ticks blazing star buttonbush
butterfly bush cherry clover columbine
daisy dandelion dill dogbane
fennel goldenrod grasses hackberry
hops ironweed jewelweed knapweed
lantana lilac mallow milkweed
mint nettle parsley penstemon
plum poplar privet rock cress
self-heal sweet pepperbush thistle tickseed
vetch violet wild carrot willow
winter cress wormwood yarrow
Ants, Bees, Wasps, & Kin
We decided to focus on bees and ants this week, though we could have had a very close encounter with the wasps who decided to build their nest on our front porch! We started the week by making a delicious treat that includes honey. Did you know bees have to make 80,000 trips to flowers to gather one small jar of honey for us?
Honey Treat
1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup honey, 1 cup milk powder, chopped dried fruit and walnuts, toasted coconut
Spread waxed paper on cookie sheet. Mix peanut butter, honey, and milk powder. Stir in fruit and nuts. Form mixture into balls (1 to 2 inches across). Roll balls in coconut. Place on cookie sheet and refrigerate for an hour. Makes about 18 balls. Yum yum!
We watched another incredible video, Busy as a Bee, and saw the amazing bee dance and marveled at the many jobs bees have. The children enjoyed our “Bee Hive” puzzle and the beehive page in The Big Bug Search. They wrote down facts about bees on cute bee notepad papers.
For our study of ants, we read a beautiful article from National Geographic on Leafcutter Ants. Tired ants even hitch a ride on a friend’s leaf, sometimes several at a time 🙂 The children took sugar and grass seeds to a local ant nest (we have plenty in our yard) and watched what the ants’ reactions were to the treats. Two Bad Ants is one of our kids’ favorite books, so they got a kick out of noticing that some of the ants had a snack of sugar before carrying it back to the queen. Again, the children enjoyed working our “Ant Colony” puzzle, doing another page in The Big Bug Search, then wrote an info page on ants, decorated with licorice-flavored ant stickers.
We read these books:
The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive
Ant Cities
Life of the Honeybee
Grasshoppers, Katydids, & Crickets
We discovered that the current air temperature can be determined by the number of chirps per minute of the snowy tree cricket, which is common over most of North America. Not knowing, of course, what sound is the snowy tree cricket, we simply did our best to count the *loud* chirps outside. We used our counts and applied the following formula:
T = air temperature in Fahrenheit
n = number of snowy tree cricket chirps per minute
T = (n-40)/4 + 50
The estimated temperature was surprisingly close to what our thermometer showed. Handy thing to know when you’re camping!
We watched the Mystery of the Three Clocks, which is one of the best videos I’ve ever seen on any wonder of God’s creation–the 17-year cicadas–AMAZING!!!
To wrap up our unit on Entomology, the children each made their own insect book, and did pop quizzes with Paul when he came home from work 🙂
Miscellaneous Insects and other “Bugs”
We found a great series of books:
Cricketology
Rolypolyology
Snailology
Wormology
After reading each of these books, we went out in the yard and found the little critters. The children were absolutely delighted with our worm hunts at night, cricket hunts in the long grass, snail hunts in the garden, and roly poly hunts by the woodpile.
We also read:
Bugs
Environmental Science
We studied this in 2003-04 and 2006-07.
Books we read:
Just a Dream
Wump World
Where Does the Garbage Go?
Recycle!
Oil Spill
biographies
Henry David Thoreau
John Muir: Wilderness Prophet
First Books: American Conservationists
One Small Square series
African Savanna
Arctic Tundra
Backyard
Cactus Desert
Cave
Coral Reef
Pond
Seashore
Swamp
Tropical Rain Forest
Woods
Following this series, we made a “small square” in our own backyard, and watched it over a 40 minute period, making note of the plants, animals, insects, etc. It was fascinating! We saw worms, ants, beetles, and other tiny creatures; nut shells, seeds, and lots of leaves. J accidentally started a fire twice while examining something with the magnifying glass! This led to a lively discussion at lunch time about how dangerous it can be to leave bottles or other glass objects in your yard.
Videos we watched:
The Lorax
Newton’s Workshop: The Pollution Solution
Websites we explored:
www.nwf.org (National Wildlife Federation)
Genetics
We studied this in 2001-02, 2004-05 and 2007-08.
Cool Genetics links:
Beginner’s Guide to Molecular Biology
Cracking the Code of Life
Create a DNA Fingerprint
Cytogenetics Gallery
DNA from the beginning
DNA Workshop
Human Genome Project Information
Hybrid Simulation activity
Identifying Remains with DNA
Journey into DNA
K’nex DNA Models–cool!
Lost Tribes of Israel
Questions to base genetics lesson plans on
Quiz on Genetics
We used a kit we received from the “Human Genome Project”, and explored several excellent web sites:
Human Genome Project Education Resources
DNA: the Instruction Manual for All Life
We read these books:
The Cartoon Guide to Genetics (Larry Gonick & Mark Wheelis)
The Science of Jurassic Park and the Lost World (Rob De Salle & David Lindley)
Genetic Engineering: Progress or Peril?
Amazing Schemes Within Your Genes
discusses genes, chromosomes, DNA (adenine, thymine, cytosine, guanine), proteins, amino acids, the difference between girls and boys (!), identical twins, mutations, color blindness, cystic fibrosis, sickle-cell anemia
DNA is Here to Stay
discusses DNA, chromosomes, how DNA copies itself, DNA makes proteins–proteins make cells–cells make you (how’s that for simple?), many kinds of proteins, RNA (also uracil)
We watched these movies:
Newton’s Workshop: DNA decoders: Genetics
Marie Curie (NEST entertainment)
We did some fun experiments on natural selection using paper plates and colored beads. After cutting several small holes in a paper plate (large enough for the beads of different sizes to pass through), we placed a pre-specified number of beads (randomly selected) on the plate. We then shook the plate for about 5 seconds, trying to shake the same way every time the experiment was repeated. Every bead that was left on the plate was replicated on the plate. This was repeated until no beads remained. We graphed the results–very interesting to see the patterns that emerged.
Human Body
We studied this in 2003-04 and 2006-07.
Books we read:
Why I Sneeze, Shiver, Hiccup, and Yawn
Human Anatomy for Children
Human Anatomy in Full Color
The Body Book
Understanding Your Brain
My Five Senses (After reading this, we did our own sensory tests, using a blindfold and testing smell, touch, and taste on one another. For taste tests we also held our noses. The children loved these and were very surprised about some of the results!)
Hear Your Heart
A Drop of Blood
Oxygen Keeps You Alive (After reading this, we measured our resting and active heart rates.)
Dem Bones (and sang the song!)
What Happens to a Hamburger? (the children did experiments from this, too)
Play and Find Out About the Human Body
How the Body Works
The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body
The Human Body for Every Kid
Videos we watched:
The Human Body (Moody Science)
The Incredible Human Body
The Wonders of God’s Creation: Human Life
Ultimate Adventure (Moody Science Classics)
Mystery of the Three Clocks (Moody Science Classics)
The Wonder of You (Moody Science Adventures)
The Long Journey (Moody Science Adventures)
A highlight for this unit was constructing a skeleton from The Body Book kit. I had purchased it several months ahead of time, so the children had looked forward to it for a very long time. It was very fun and educational building it, and it now holds a place in our school room, and is “played with” quite often.
We colored pages from the Human Anatomy Coloring Book. That was really fun! It’s a very challenging, advanced kind of coloring book, and you learn as you color.
We did mazes from a body-related maze book, just for fun.
Marine Biology / Oceanography
We studied this in 2002-03 and 2006-07.
The highlight was a trip to the Atlantic Ocean where we spent many happy hours playing in the sand and surf (even though it was December and *chilly*). We combined this with our study of Ancient Egypt and built pyramids in the sand.
Oceans
We read these books:
Oceans (Seymour Simon)
Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean
Ocean (Eyewitness)
The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor
Underwater Wilderness
The Great Undersea Search
How to Draw Sea Creatures
SeaWorld book
Sea Searcher’s Handbook
Coral Reef
We did some projects from Oceans for Every Kid.
We read these literary works:
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Wreck of the Zephyr
We explored these websites:
Coral Forest
Life in the Ocean
We watched these movies:
Voice of the Deep
The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten
The Living Sea (IMAX)
Into the Deep (IMAX)
Mammals
We read Whale (Eyewitness).
We read these literary works:
Amos and Boris
Moby Dick
We made origami models of sea creatures.
We explored these websites:
Whale Watching Web
Whale Net
Life Cycle 3
Fish
We read these books:
Extremely Weird Fishes
Extremely Weird Sea Creatures
My Visit to the Aquarium
Freaky Fish Facts
We read the literature book, Swimmy.
We listened to the tape, I’d Like to Be a Marine Biologist.
We explored these websites:
Monterey Bay Aquarium On-line
VIMS Marine Education
We watched these movies:
Experience with an Eel
The Long Journey
Shellfish
We did activities from Sea Searcher’s Handbook.
We read Shell (Eyewitness).
We played the game of Krill. This is a fabulous game, and has become a family favorite!
We explored these websites:
The Conchologist’s Information Network
Wonders of the Sea
We visited Fernbank Museum to view their fabulous shell collection.
Seashore
We read these books:
Seashore (Eyewitness)
Where the Waves Break: Life at the Edge of the Sea
Titanic
We read these books:
Return to Titanic
We watched these movies:
Secrets of the Titanic
Microbiology
We studied this in 2005 – 06.
Books
“A Field Guide to Germs” (Wayne Biddle)
“Microbiology Coloring Book”
“Germs Make Me Sick!” (Melvin Berger)
Louis Pasteur: Disease Fighter” (Linda Wasmer Smith)
“There’s a Zoo On You” (Kathy Darling)
“Germs” (Dan Nardo)
P did an introductory course in Microbiology at a local university in 2001 as part of a gifted program.
Ornithology
We studied this in 2003-04 and 2006-07.
I started off by giving the kids little activity books from Dover (they have so many wonderful, cheap resources!)–these were a big hit! The girls and I are now sporting beautiful bird tattoos 🙂 In addition to tattoo books, we used bird sticker books, bird stencil books, and bird coloring books.
We read many bird books, including:
National Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Birds
Australian Birdlife (Steve Parrish)–gorgeous pictures, which remind me of my childhood down under 🙂
What Makes a Bird a Bird?
Crinkleroot’s Guide to Knowing the Birds
Birdsong — very fun with younger children, because of all the bird calls they can imitate
The Bird Alphabet Book — great pictures
Extremely Weird Birds
A Nest Full of Eggs
She’s Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head! — a literature story, but also the story of how using birds as decorations on hats was outlawed!
The Robins in Your Backyard
Duck’s Don’t Get Wet
Falcons Nest on Skyscrapers — a neat true story about a very special falcon
How Do Birds Find Their Way?
Flute’s Journey: The Life of a Wood Thrush
Crinkleroot’s 25 Birds Every Child Should Know
Feathers for Lunch — the birds illustrated in this book are shown actual size
Enoch the Emu — this is one of our family favorites!
Story About Ping
Owl at Home
Birds and Their Nests
Ornithology
Birds in the Bushes: A Story about Margaret Morse Nice
Backyard Bird Watching for Kids
Bird
M colored a Vulture, Woodpecker, and Eagle; C colored a Robin, Swallow, and American Goldfinch (which she pointed out is the state bird of New Jersey). Both referred to our bird field guide for colors, so their pictures were very realistic and beautiful.
We made a sturdy paper birdhouse (from a kit) and hung it up for the birds to feast on.
We played with an Audobon bird call, which got Slippers’ (our cat’s) attention every time we squeaked out a call.
We also attempted folding some Origami birds, but only got as far as making seagulls–our pelicans were a bit sad 🙂
We watched these movies:
The Clown-Faced Carpenter (Moody Science)
Zoology
We studied this in 2002-03 and 2005-06.
General
Websites:
Books:
The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide
Plant and Animal Alphabet Coloring Book
Zoology Coloring Book
Videos:
The Wonders of God’s Creation: Animal Kingdom
A Trip to the San Diego Zoo
Amphibians
Books:
The Frog Alphabet Book
Why is a Frog Not a Toad?
Amphibian (Eyewitness)
Extremely Weird Frogs
Videos:
Castaways of Galapagos
We made some origami frogs.
We made project sheets using frog stickers.
We tried out the Virtual Frog Dissection — cool!
Arachnids
Videos:
Moody Science Adventures: Eight-legged Engineers
Mammals
Books:
Elephant (Eyewitness)
books about primates.
Videos:
National Geographic Video: The Great Whales
National Geographic Video: The Grizzlies
National Geographic Video: Zebra: Patterns in the Grass
National Geographic Video: Africa’s Animal Oasis
Moody Science Classics: Of Books and Sloths
Moody Science Classcis: The Wonder of You
Reptiles
We read these books:
The Yucky Reptile Alphabet Book
Extremely Weird Reptiles
Reptile (Eyewitness)
We made project sheets using reptile stickers.
Fundamentals of Biology–taken from Castle Heights Press catalog.
Know the areas of study in biology and their names.
Know the classification system with emphasis on its structure, criteria for classification of organisms, and be familiar with groupings and examples down to class and order.
Know the names and be able to recognize the common species in your area. Understand their roles in the area. Example: Rice–economic importance as food source. Fields provide habitats for nutria, fish, amphibians. Grown where ground may be too wet for other grains.
Know the cycles of life and how they vary from phylum to phylum–class to class.
Understand the fundamental premise that every organism must perform life functions to survive and that these are similar in all life forms.
Know the systems that function within organisms, and how they work together.
Be able to relate the needs of all organisms to specific organisms and explain how each special form meets the need. Example: oxygen is needed by all the cells in any organism. Gaseous exchange is a function whereby this need is met. Some organisms perform gas exchange with lungs, some with gills, some use blood to circulate the oxygen, some have closed circulatory systems, some open, some do gas exchange through the skin.
Be able to recognize various major organs of different life forms from dissection experience or from drawings.
Understand the cell theory and the basic structure of the living cell.
Know the process whereby life characteristics are transferred to future generations. Mitosis and meiosis, reproductive systems. Know the various types of reproduction used as well as examples of each.
Know the cell types and how they work together in tissues. Know the different types of tissues and be able to explain how their structure is related to what work they do.
Know the processes of photosynthesis and respiration and their relationships to living things.
Osmosis, diffusion, and active transport: distinguish and explain with examples.
Know the uses of enzymes in the bodies of life forms; the uses of hormones and their effect on the body.
Be able to explain and construct an energy pyramid. Know some effects of environmental change on organisms and interrelationships between them.
Know some population studies including these factors: overpopulation, density-induced stress, density-induced diseases (both physical and psychological). Also predation, density, food supply, and waste removal.
Know human health, anatomy and the methods of maintaining well-being.
Know some of the vectors of diseases and how to prevent the diseases.
Know human development from embryology to adulthood. Also be able to name the causes and general treatment of some of the more common disorders. Example: diabetes. Understand basic types of inheritance and how they impact humans and domesticated life forms.
Practice observation, record keeping and communication skills by writing a good laboratory notebook.
