Introductory Biology

Students will be able to:

• Predict the effect of reaction temperature on the rate of a chemical reaction

• Interpret a graph plotted between rate of a chemical reaction and temperature

• Discuss chemical kinetics utilizing case studies of cold-blooded animals

At the end of this lesson students will be able to...

• Describe the role of a primer in PCR
• Predict sequence and length of PCR product based on primer sequences
• Recognize that primers are incorporated into the final PCR products and explain why
• Identify covalent and hydrogen bonds formed and broken during PCR
• Predict the structure of PCR products after each cycle of the reaction
• Explain why amplification proceeds exponentially

Students successfully completing this lesson will:

• Practice navigating an online bioinformatics resource and identify evidence relevant to solving investigation questions
• Contrast the array of genes expected on homologous autosomal chromosomes pairs with the array of genes expected on sex chromosome pairs
• Use bioinformatics evidence to defend the definition of homologous chromosomes
• Define chromosomal sex and defend the definition using experimental data
• Investigate the genetic basis of human chromosomal sex determination
• Identify at least two genetic mutations can lead to sex reversal

• Students will be able to describe the three stages of cellular respiration.
• Students will be able to identify the reactants entering and the products formed during each stage of cellular respiration.
• Students will be able to explain how chemical energy in carbohydrates is transferred to ATP through the stages of cellular respiration.
• Students will be able to explain the effects of compartmentalization of cellular respiration reactions in different cellular spaces.
• Students will be able to predict biological outcomes when a specific stage(s) of cellular respiration is altered. 

• Students will identify cell structures when viewing an image or diagram of a cell.

• Students will define the function of eukaryotic organelles and structures, including describing the processes and conditions related to transmembrane transport

• Students will differentiate between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, plant and animal cells according to their structural organization.

• Students will be able to identify sister chromatids and homologous chromosomes at different stages of meiosis.
• Students will be able to identify haploid and diploid cells, whether or not the chromosomes are replicated.
• Students will be able to explain why homologous chromosomes must pair during meiosis.
• Students will be able to relate DNA sequence similarity to chromosomal structures.
• Students will be able to identify crossing over as the key to proper pairing of homologous chromosomes during meiosis.
• Students will be able to predict the outcomes of meiosis for a particular individual or cell.

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• Describe the roles of light energy and carbon dioxide in photosynthetic organisms.
• Identify the effect of nutrients on the growth of photosynthetic organisms.
• Describe global cycles in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and how they relate to photosynthetic organisms.

Students will be able to:

• Perturb and interpret simulations of the trp operon.
• Define how simulation results relate to cellular events.
• Describe the biological role of the trp operon.
• Describe cellular mechanisms regulating the trp operon.
• Explain mechanistically how changes in the extracellular environment affect the trp operon.
• Define the impact of mutations on trp operon expression and regulation.

Students will be able to:

• Apply findings from each week's lesson to make predictions and informed hypotheses about the next week's lesson.
• Keep a detailed laboratory notebook.
• Write and peer-edit the sections of a scientific paper, and collaboratively write an entire lab report in the form of a scientific research paper.
• Search for, find, and read scientific research papers.
• Work together as a team to conduct experiments.
• Connect findings and ideas from each week's lesson to get a broader understanding of how plants will respond to higher levels of CO2 (e.g., stomatal density, photosynthetic/respiratory rates, foliar protein concentrations, growth, and resource allocation).

Note: Additional, more specific objectives are included with each of the four lessons (Supporting Files S1-S4)

Students will be able to:

• explain the differences between silent (no change in the resulting amino acid sequence), missense (a change in the amino acid sequence), and nonsense (a change resulting in a premature stop codon) mutations.
• differentiate between how information is encoded during DNA replication, transcription, and translation.
• evaluate how different types of mutations (silent, missense, and nonsense) and the location of those mutations (intron, exon, and promoter) differentially affect the processes in the central dogma.
• predict the molecular (DNA size, mRNA length, mRNA abundance, and protein length) and/or phenotypic consequences of mutations.