Last post for 2012 ... two family picts!

Today, I worked most of the day on my AP Biology syllabus and sent it to the college board for approval.  This was part of the 2012-2013 AP Biology audit.  This course has changed ... less content but more depth (18 Chapters removed ... most of the animal science, most organ systems and almost all the plant science) and revised labs (now 13 investigations).  I posted the revised syllabus on my school website this evening ... about 30 pages ... I know, a little much!

I worked on my website tonight ... www.patscience.com ... I am shutting down my pages on softball and cross country ... time to move on.  I am currently working on updating the AP Biology page and will continue this during the spring semester.

Lots of birds visiting our feeders today, dozens of golden finches and sever black-capped chickadees ... took a walk to Long Creek this afternoon in a light rain ... lots of deer out feeding.

AP starts up Wednesday ... I am looking forward to a Spring teaching AP without having to coach!

Two family picts to end the year ...  one is a picture of my sister's and our children arranged from oldest to youngest and below, my Dad (Shorty) with his grandchildren.

Books for Christmas ... yeah!

Christmas has come and gone.  We had all three of our children and their spouses in for Christmas and it is always fun to see them and hear their stories.  We took several walks on the farm.

I received three books for Christmas ... THANKS!

Across Many Mountains by Yangzom Brauen (a family's story about their escape from Tibet and life in exile)
The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell (professor at the University of the South - Sewanee)
The Appalachian Trail by The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (a coffee table book ... but the pictures and story, WOW!)
Most unique gift was from Sue's Uncle Glen ... a piece of amber with a bee in it!
We had a very good Christmas!

I hope my AP Bio students will get to work on their Christmas assignment now that Christmas is over ... Lots of work to do before May!  Don't forget to take some notes for the discussion questions at the end of the assignment sheet!  Good luck!

We have started feeding the birds (sunflower seed).  We keep one feeder close to the house ... lots of juncos, golden finches (brownish green in the winter), cardinals, titmouse, red-bellied and hairy woodpeckers, nuthatches, bluejays and many more ... mostly finches below.  Some better pictures later!

Brass Caroling and snow ...

What a difference a day makes.  Yesterday was 65 degrees and beautiful all day.  I checked all our beehives and started our tractor to do some work outside.  Today, cold and raining  ...  now snowing.

We had brass caroling tonight ... a tour on the town square, a few houses, the YMCA and rest homes.  Only playing once a year limits my sousaphone skills but as the evening wears on, I seem to regain some ability beyond embarrassment.  The musical effort each Christmas is headed up by former ACS band director, Sam Kent and his friend Ken Goforth.  It is always fun and several former students home for Christmas usually show up.  This year Hannah was home and got to participate ... we ended the musical tour and the Foster house for chili.  Picture below, is part of the group caroling tonight.

Semester is over and Squid Lab

We continued to have AP Biology students today pick up their books and reading assignment for Christmas vacation.  We are going to get through the ecology in two or three days.  We will be facing a new curriculum this year in AP Biology after over 20 years.  Several new labs ... human organ systems out with the exception of immune, endocrine and nervous systems ... most plant chapters are out with the exception of flowering plants and hormones.  Emphasis will be on inquiry, molecular, evolution and homeostasis.  Seven of the old labs stay with revisions and six more, now called investigations, are mostly new for a total of 13 investigations.  Two are computer only labs.
Should be a challenge but, fun!

Today we wrapped up some grading in Genetics ... handed back the finals from Monday.

In Selected Topics we used our Squid Lab for our final.  The dissection took the entire period with external and internal drawings / labeling.  A good way to end the course.  We had six students duck the last day of school that needed to take the final!

In computer programming today,  I had some students show me their programs they were still trying to finish.


I had to clean up the lab after school so got home late.   Pictures from today below ...

Last day of school 2012 tomorrow ...

Today, we had our final in Genetics ... we will hand it back tomorrow and tie up some loose ends ... students are suppose to bring in some breakfast for fun!

In Selected Topics, we finished our Chemistry / Gunpowder Lab and worked on our human organ system unit ... muscles and bones.  Tomorrow, we end up with a squid dissection.

Computer programming did a peer review of projects today ... lots of simple games and a very good job by many programmers!  We will wrap up some odds and ends to finish the course tomorrow.

It has been a good semester ... on to AP Biology and a new Selected Topics class in the Spring semester.

Faculty dinner tonight ...

AP Biology students for Spring 2013 need to pick up their Christmas reading assignment and book tomorrow!

Finals start tomorrow ...

Our finals are tomorrow and Tuesday.

Genetics will be taking their final tomorrow over the last five chapters we covered to finish the book.  Good luck.  On Friday, we finished our BLAST lab which is a new lab in AP Biology this Spring.

In Selected Topics, we will finish the write up on our Chemistry: Gunpowder Lab. We had great results from every lab group ... picts tomorrow.  We also will prep our squid dissection for Tuesday and finish our organ systems study tomorrow.

In Computer Programming we begin the peer review of student projects.  This was our final in this class and several of the projects looked great!

Sue Neal and I attended our oldest nephew's graduation from NKU on Saturday.  Was good to see the family and proud of Jay.

Grading papers tonight ... want to wrap that up by Tuesday!

School today ...

Today at school in genetics, we worked to finish the discussion questions on our last two chapters but have a few left for tomorrow.  Tomorrow we are doing one of the new labs for AP ... using the BLAST software tool to analyze DNA sequences ... http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi

Selected Topics continued their work on human organ systems ... today, reproductive and circulatory.  Tomorrow we will begin the Best of Kentucky Daniel Boone Gunpowder Making Contest.  A short chemistry unit on balancing chemical equations.

I checked the last Visual BASIC problem of the year ... working on student generated projects and we will check on Monday to finish the course.

Sue Neal and I did some Christmas shopping after school today and had supper with John and Claire before getting home to check on Granny.  Four more school days until Christmas!

Bumblebees, Club Schedule and books ...

Today was Club Schedule at our school which means students were out of most of my classes.  We were able to have the Selected Topics class third block.

Genetics tomorrow will finish their Ricki Lewis Human Genetics book with discussion questions on mutations, non-disjunction and prehistoric man.  We are going to try to get our BLAST lab done on Thursday and Friday. Our final is on Monday.

Selected Topics finished their Plant vocabulary and started on human organ systems.  Today was the digestive system and the biochemistry of digestion.  Tomorrow, will be circulatory system and reproduction.  We will have a short chemistry unit Thursday and Friday before returning to organ systems the last two days before Christmas break.

Tomorrow in computer science we will check our last program on invisible clickable objects.  Our final projects will be peer reviewed on Monday ... a few students have already finished their projects!

I got home in time for a walk to Long Creek this evening ... still a little damp from the nearly 4 inches of rain we got Sunday and Monday.  Birds were busy but not many animals stirring around.

I got an interesting book recently on bumble bees ... actually two for our habitat restoration project for pollinators this spring.  The first is Befriending Bumble Bees (ordered from Xerces Society).  We are planning to build some bumble bee boxes and there is a lot of great information in this book about rearing bumble bees.

Bumble Bees of the Eastern United States is the other book (from Pollinator Partnership).  Great for identification of different species!  Some good reading and food for thought this winter before the bees get busy in the spring.

Tree Lab and Gene Regulation ...

This morning in Genetics, we went over gene regulation ... lac operon, trp operon, transcription factors and more.  Tomorrow is club schedule and all of the genetics class will be gone.  On Wednesday, we will work to finish our book ... Mutations, Nondisjunction and Hominids.  We are trying to squeeze in one more lab on Thursday and Friday.

Selected Topics finished their unit on Plants with a Tree Lab ... we calculated leaf surface area and mass of a maple tree and worked on vocabulary.  We will will finish this tomorrow and start our review to our final.

Helped a student on his checker program today ... took up most of the block.  We will have several out of this class tomorrow for club schedule.  We will check our last problem which is on invisible objects on Wednesday.  Projects due next Monday.

Had to go to the dentist today and still fighting off a cold.  Below is a picture from our Big Bird Test last week in Selected Topics in Science.  How can you care about the environment if you don't know what is out there!

Angle pod milkweed pods ...

Last week in science we finished up our study of milkweed, milkweed ecology and a review of the many insects and spiders that frequent milkweed.  One activity was the dissection and quantification of milkweed pods.  Below are angle pod milkweed and common milkweed pods.  The angle pod (climbing) milkweed pods were larger as were their seed and floss.

Genetics found 231 seeds per pod in common milkweed and Selected topics 206.  It seem that the increase in pod weight only slightly yielded more seeds.  We made tables of our data and graphed some of the information, not shown.  Below is a comparison of angle pod milkweed (below) with common milkweed (top)

We will be start this seed in our high school greenhouse this spring and use the plants for our habitat restoration for pollinators project ... multiple sites across Allen County.

Yellowjackets and old honey

About a week ago, I got rid of some old honey by spreading the honey on some old comb in open frames.  Our honey bees soon found it and were there in numbers.  However, some other visitors showed up for the feast.  Even though we have had a few cold days and some temps as low as 25 F, yellowjackets are still around.

5 Trees and Milkweed Lab wraps up!

In Genetics Friday, we worked on finishing our book ... Chapters 9 and 10.  We had discussion questions and sample MC questions from our AP book.  Monday will be Chapter 11 and 12.  That leaves only one chapter to finish our Ricki Lewis book.  We will try to squeeze in one additional lab next week.  Club schedule is Tuesday so we won't be able to have class that day.

In Selected Topics, we had Mr. Chris Vernon, former certified forester and now teacher at AC-S HS join us for 5 trees of importance in Allen County ... tulip poplar, oaks, shagbark hickory, sugar maple and sassafras.  Afterwards, we finished our milkweed lab with analysis of pods and graphing our results.  Below students working on pod analysis and seed removal.
Monday we will finish our plant unit and spend the rest of the time in chemistry.

We checked or programs in computer programming on Friday.  One week to go and almost all students are working on their student generated final project.  Looks like some good programs!

Getting some much needed rain this evening with a little thunder and lightning.

Flies, Fastplants and Milkweed Seed

In Genetics today, we finished up our Drosophila Lab with the Chi Square Analysis of data.  We accepted the null hypothesis on our sex-linked white-eye cross but did not for our dihybrid cross using sepia eye and vestigial wings ... although we got some great results ... all in all we sorted and counted over 1600 flies over parts of two days.

Also in Genetics, we finished up our lab extension on our fast plant crosses ... our F2 generation nearly maintained our F1 population gene frequency ... our Chi Square Analysis as close enough to accept the null hypothesis ... this lab took over six weeks to complete ... a long haul for a HS lab.

In Selected Topics, we started our Milkweed Lab by dissecting pods and collecting data to graph ... results tomorrow.  We also had a dispersion contest ... congrats to all the winners.

We started checking our last Visual BASIC problems in Computer Science today ... great programming ... many students are working on their final project.

Milkweed seed extraction continues

Today in Genetics, we wrapped up our seed extraction and pod analysis of common milkweed.  I will post our data tomorrow.  We wrapped it up with a seed dispersion contest which was won by Katie ... single seed with floss with the help of a small fan ... a distance of 14 feet.  This activity is part of our habitat restoration for pollinators scheduled for this Spring.

In Selected Topics today we researched milkweed ecology in preparation of our lab on Thursday.

Tomorrow the juniors are going to see Lincoln, the movie.  That takes nearly everyone out of my genetics and selected topic classes tomorrow.

Visual BASIC continues in computer programming.  Problems today included multiple timers used in gaming.

Angled pod milkweed ... found.

Still waiting on picture posting / memory problem ... it continues ...

Juniors will be out of school to the Lincoln movie on Wednesday.

In genetics, we finished our restriction enzyme lab today.  Tomorrow, we will be finish our fastplant / Hardy Weinberg Lab by counting our F2 plants.  We will be checking to see if the gene frequency stayed the same from one generation to the next.

http://www.carolina.com/dna-gel-electrophoresis-kits/restriction-enzyme-cleavage-of-dna-4-station-student-kit/211148Y.pr

In Selected Topics, we worked on plant taxonomy,  milkweed ecology and watched a short film on pollinators.  Tomorrow we are going to the Mac Lab to do some research for our Milkweed Ecology Lab on Thursday.

We have a couple of students that are finished with the last set of Microsoft Visual BASIC problems and are working on their final projects.  We will start checking problems on Wednesday.  Student generated projects will be due during finals.

Got in a walk after school to Long Creek ... found two angled pod (climbing) milkweed plants.  I collected some of the pods for seed and will start them in the greenhouse for our pollinator project in the Spring.  Picture of climbing milkweed below ... http://extension.missouri.edu/p/ipm1021-6

Sorry about no picts ... maybe the memory problem will be resolved soon.

Seeing if this pict stays ... by copy/drag from the website above.