As a senior who has taken all honors/AP classes, I got a chance this year to have a science class that is extended for lab time. So after my adventures in Physics last year with A & B, we decided to give ourselves a break and try AP Biology. And it was probably one of the best decisions we have ever made…okay, maybe not, but seriously if you’d been in our Physics class…it’s like going from eating dirt to your favorite wonderful, delicious dessert.
There are only ten of us in the class and it's all girls It was weird at first because I’ve never had a class with all girls, but since, in most AP classes at our school, girls outnumber boys, it wasn’t too strange. It’s actually really nice. We meet every day and are able to have really good class discussions and, in just a week, we have done two labs! Last Friday we did a “dot” lab that helped us learn about camouflage and the adaptations and evolution of animals and organisms over time.
Yesterday and today we’ve been doing a lab that is supposed to help us learn about the carrying capacity of environments (the number of a certain organism that can live in a certain amount of space and survive).
Yesterday’s lab: In pairs and on the freshman football practice field, (heaven knows we would have been killed had we touched varsity’s!) we measured off 10x10 plots and with Partner B turned around, Partner A spread 100 pieces of macaroni around. Within 60 seconds Partner B then had to find a piece of food and distribute into their nest five times. We couldn’t pick up two pieces at once or move our nest around…although we did throw our food from one side to another. If you found your five pieces, in less then 60 seconds (1 day), 12 times (days) you lived through the first winter! Then partners would switch. We then moved plots and the number of macaroni scattered, dwindled fast (60, 40, then 20). By the end, it was nearly impossible to find those flecks of yellow in golden, heat burnt grass. So we died more then once.
Today’s lab: Five of us got into the middle of a 20x20 plot to find 400 noodles while the other five timed for 60 seconds. In the end it was all about who lived the longest (B the first time). And then we were animals that had to overcome defects (an injured arm, an injured arm and leg, an injured leg, blindness, and having to feed two children—11 pieces had to be found). Liz and Ashley tied for that one…they died the same day. It was a huge competition-we are girls after all-and no one really realized just how much they were learning!
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