AP Biology Summer Assignment 2013

Welcome to AP Biology!

This course is designed to be the equivalent of a two semester introductory biology course

usually taken in the first year of college. The new AP Biology curriculum has changed this year and

revolves around four main “Big Ideas”:

Big Idea 1: The diversity and unity of life can be explained by the process of evolution

Big Idea 2: Biological systems use energy and molecular building blocks to grow, reproduce and maintain homeostasis (regulation).

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

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

To successfully complete this course and meet all of the required objectives, you are required to

do independent work both during the summer and throughout the school year. In the summer you are

to review the introduction chapter as well as the Chemistry chapters of the text so that we can get right

into Biological Processes at the beginning of the year. We have included scanned pages from the text.

Please complete the reading as well as the review questions in preparation for our first week of class.

This assignment can be typed or hand written in legible handwriting and is due on the first day of school.

You may also email it to your Biology teacher Mrs. Seeley (seeleyp@lschs.org) or Mr. Gillespie

(gillespiet@lschs.org) if you wish to turn it in early. If you have any questions regarding any part of the

summer assignment, do not hesitate to email us and ask.