Welcome to Honors 1 Biology. The Honors Biology teachers in Brick have created
this collection of exercises for you this summer. Our hope is that these will help you
stay in shape academically over the summer and also will help you develop skills
that will be useful in the course. Whether you’re a Dragon or a Mustang, these ideas
will be relevant during Honors Biology and we hope that you handle them with an
“Honors” level of energy and integrity. We all know that most assignments are
represented in some fashion on the Internet. Your goal should not be to find-andcopy as much as possible but rather to appreciate that these challenges were
specifically designed to be manageable and useful for this course. Spend time on
them and submit work that you’re proud of. All work is to be printed out and
submitted on the first day of your Biology class. No emailed submissions of work will
be accepted.
Part 1:
Biologists run experiments. It’s what we do. From those experiments, we gather,
interpret, and share data. One way we do that is by creating graphs that put our data
into an easily viewed form. Graphing is an important skill for us (and by default,
you) so getting that skill correct is one focus of this summer’s work. Attached are
both a packet of activities and the answer key that supports it. You do need to
answer all challenges in this packet then check your work with the key. (These skills
will be needed later…)
Attachment “Summer Work Graphing” and “Summer Graphing Key”
View the following YouTube video that explains the process of graphing using Excel.
If you do not have Excel on your computer, you will need to find a computer to use
(the public library has computers for public use that are equipped with this
program) for the graphing part of the exercise below and also for the lab you’ll do
this summer in part 6 of this packet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn7Sd5Uu42A
ALL GRAPHS CREATED DURING THIS SUMMER PACKET FROM THIS POINT MUST
BE DONE BOTH BY HAND AND ALSO VIA EXCEL. Graphs done by hand must be done
on graph paper and every line must be ruled. Keys must be provided where
appropriate. Graphs should be done in pencil and axes should be just as long as
needed.
Attachment “Algae Graphing Exercise”
Part 2:
We speak the language. Biology is a vocabulary intensive course. It’s actually much
like learning a foreign language (Latin!). Fortunately, the Latin words we use are
made of smaller fragments. The attached list of prefixes/suffixes offers a small
collection of these fragments that can be assembled to form larger, compound
words. For this part, consult the first page as you work through the questions on the
second page. THEN, please put each prefix/suffix that is marked with a star onto a
3”x5” index card (fragments on the front and definitions on the back). These will be
checked on the first day too.
Attachment “Scientific Prefixes and Suffixes”
Part 3:
We listen to other ideas. Go to this website and select three of the short videos to
watch. For each video, type a summary including that video’s title and specific web
address. Your summary should be a collection of main points and what you learned
from each video and (obviously?) typed in correct English…
http://ed.ted.com/lessons?category=life-sciences
Part 4:
We read too. Communication is the backbone for most of scientific progress.
Without collaboration and discussion, many experiments would simply duplicate
others. Select any one of these articles to read. Type a summary of it (word count no
less than 250 and your word count should be included at the end of your summary).
A reminder- summaries are NOT just a collection of your favorite sentences copied
from the passage. This is to be IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Chimps can copy, we should
be processing beyond that level. Then in a few sentences, propose another
experiment/concept that would act as a next step for the article’s main points.
Where could it go from here? What would be an interesting, related study from this
point?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/compulsive-texting-takes-toll-onteenagers/?_r=0
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/how-inactivity-changes-thebrain/?version=meter+at+2&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fqu
ery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26contentColl
ection%26region%3DTopBar%26WT.nav%3DsearchWidget%26module%3DSearc
hSubmit%26pgtype%3Dsectionfront&priority=true&action=click&contentCollectio
n=Science&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/sleep-for-teenagers/
Part 5:
Speaking of running experiments… Part 6 below is an experiment for you to run.
Prior to getting started on that, there are two last skills to review: creating
hypotheses and identifying variables in an experiment as you’re designing it or as
you’re executing a designed protocol. Hypotheses should be arranged in “If, Then”
statements and they should commit to the idea you’re testing: “pH affects plant
growth” is not a good hypothesis but “lowering pH inhibits plant growth” is. The
first attempt does not commit to an idea but the second one does. Whether it later
turns out to be supported by the data or not is irrelevant- properly designed and
executed experiments are always valuable!
Furthering that example, see how the growth of the plant DEPENDS on the pH
changing? That identifies the growth as the “Dependent Variable” and the pH as the
“Independent Variable”. The number of candles on your birthday cake DEPENDS on
your age; the amount of cell death DEPENDS on the viral count; the amount of
proteins a cell builds DEPENDS on the amount of transcription factors present in the
cell. The following sheet allows you to practice identifying variables and establishing
hypotheses.
Attachment Summer Packet Forming Hypothesis
Part 6:
Putting it all together… The following attachment steps you through the process of
an actual experiment from creating a hypothesis, to gathering and analysis of data,
to the extrapolation from it. No experiment is really conclusive without a lot of data.
You are asked to gather ruler-drop data from ten people. That may seem like a lot of
people but it isn’t. For the science community to recognize your experiment and its
claims, much more data would need to be gathered…
Attachment Summer Packet Ruler Drop Experiment
Remember that all work is due on the first day of your Biology class. For grading
purposes, we will group all sections together as one grade except for part 6 which
will be a stand-alone grade.
Working together on this project is permitted but handing in identical work is not,
so be careful here. Any suspicious, likely copied work will result in a zero for that
entire grade, e.g. copied work for any part of the first sections will void the entire
first part’s grade, not just that individual component.
Questions? Contact [email protected]