Crowdsource the Content

I fell in love the first time I saw a Prezi. Gone were the days of just having to present stale PowerPoint slides. Now we could zoom and twist and turn our way through information...just don't go too fast or risk a little motion sickness. The AP Bio Rockstars used Prezi to help them study bacteria and the invertebrates of Kingdom Animalia. What an amazing job they did! Enjoy...

KQED Do Now

At the beginning of last semester, colleague Erin Kahn and I joined the KQED Do Now Working Group and we had our Rockstar students sign up for Twitter. This was our first foray into incorporating social media into our classes. It has been a success! Not only have our students developed their communication skills - only 140 characters requires you to be efficient in comments - they have discovered a new way to use social media as an educational tool.

This week, students, Mana from #APBio3 and Shannon, Lindsay, Katherine, Emily and Nicole  from #SMed7, were highlighted in the KQED Roundup of the #DoNowConcussions discussion.

Dodging Mavericks

On January 30th, the AP Bio and ESA students traveled to Moss Beach to be part of the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve field study with LIMPETs. After exploring the tide pools, the students got to work using quadrats to collect data about the biodiversity of the area. This data is used to analyze patterns and track the impacts of climate changes on the species. Collecting data on this scale takes thousands of volunteers and our NDB Tigers were excited to be part of the effort. 

As a class, the AP Biology students used Audioboo to record and share their learning.

AP Biology students then created multimedia projects to further reflect on their experience. Click the links below to see their reflections. 

You can extract DNA at home!

As an extra credit opportunity, Team AP Bio Rockstars showed off their lab skills and extracted DNA right in their own kitchen. Check out how a couple of them accomplished this!

Find out more details and how this works in the Ted.ed video below. 

Team AP Bio Has a Chat

For this unit we tried something different. For the short answer portion of the unit exam, we had a Twitter chat! The entire class responded to and asked questions all on Twitter. Check out our chat.

Join in the Global Conversation

This semester the AP Bio Rockstars have been participating in KQED's Do Now project. There are issues presented to students nationwide and we join the conversation by responding on Twitter. After the students had completed a reflection regarding Malala Yousafzai, I thought it would be interesting to have another discussion regarding this image created by David Trumble.

After sharing the link with the students, we had an in class discussion through Twitter. Here's what the AP Bio Rockstars had to say.

 

Curiosity leads to learning...and more curiosity!

The AP Bio Rockstars investigated driving questions related to photosynthesis and here's what they discovered. Spark your own curiosity by reading through the questions and click on each to see what the AP Bio Rockstars learned!

Are there diseases that affect how photosynthesis works?

How do photosynthetic organisms protect themselves from damage and in what types of environments do these organisms thrive?

How do we use Photosynthesis as  a renewable energy source? 

How do different colored lights affect photosynthesis?

Can plants photosynthesize as efficiently with artificial light?

Does photosynthesis vary among different plant species? 

How do the changing seasons affect photosynthesis?

Curious about Photosynthesis

This unit we are focusing on the flow of energy through the biosphere. The AP Bio Rockstars have some incredible questions. Check them out. Then stay tuned for their Prezis answering their questions. These will be posted on their sites under the Projects tab. I can't wait for the answers and their creativity to shine!

Created with Padlet

For The Love of Water

One main goal for this course is to connect content and learning with the world experience. As a class, we watched the documentary F.L.O.W. (For the Love of Water)
They were then asked to write a blog post reflection on the movie. Here are some of their thoughts.

"Re-visit one of your routine days and recall how many times you come across water. Let me help you out.  When you wake up in the morning, you probably go to the sink and open the tap, having water come out to brush your teeth, wash your face, and whatever else. Then you might go to your shower or tub and open up more taps to have water come out and just enjoy the flow of cold or hot water throughout your body and just feel the feeling of getting clean.  Later, you eat breakfast with cereal, blueberries, orange juice and believe it or not most of those foods contain water. And after that, throughout the day, you drink a few bottles of water and wash you hands a few times. Anyway you get the point, water is important, we use it a lot for sanitation and hydration, it has just got to be there.
What if you didn’t have water? No water comes out of your taps and no bottles filled with water, foods that don’t have water in them, no rain or lakes, oceans and as a result no…you!" From Hannah's Post

"I thought it was kind of ironic how Nestle was talking about how if they didn’t bottle the water people would drink soda which is full of sugar and would make children obese. I think its ironic that they say that they are helping to lower obesity when they sell candy and chocolate which causes obesity. " From Carly's Post

"My call to action regarding the water issue is that since last year, I have been raising money to build a well in Uganda. I completed my project in late July of this year and the well was built for a primary school of over 500 children. These children no longer have to worry about getting access to clean, safe water and now have the opportunity to go to school and follow their dreams. Many countries throughout the world do not have access to safe water and with the building of this well, this village in Uganda no longer has to worry. Below is a picture of the children of the primary school in Uganda." From Mana's Post

Check out the movie that inspired these students' reflections. F.L.O.W. (For the Love of Water) Then make a difference by signing Article 31

Article 31:

Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstance.

Rockstar Save the Bay Posts!

We are all learning how to blog and create sites this year in AP Biology. The students' first assignment was to include a creative introduction on their site to welcome visitors. This is an opportunity to share the personality of the site and the author as well as draw the visitor in and engage them in the site.

Check out a couple posts that were awesome!

Serena created an original movie to introduce her site 
Explore Dream Examine

 

Emily included a poll in her post. Check out her site From My Eyes to Your Eyes.

Don't forget to vote at the end!

 

Grace created a SlideShare of her experience.
Don't forget to head over to her site Keep Moving Forward

 

Stay tuned. More awesome posts to come!

  

Saving the Bay Part I

On September 4, 2013, the AP Bio Rockstars had the opportunity to join forces with our online Environmental Science class and head to Byxbee Park. Working with Save the Bay, the students collected environmental monitoring data and focused on invasive exotic plant removal. It was a beautiful day filled with sunshine, dirty hands, and learning. Listen to their experiences.