Classification

12.11.01 Identify the major categories (taxa) of biological classification: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.

12.11.02 Understand the kingdoms used by taxonomists: a 5-kingdom system; monera, protista, fungi, plantae, and animalia and a 6-kingdom system; eubacteria, archaebacteria, protista, fungi, plantae, and animalia. Students should be able to identify organisms within the systems. Understand how to read a cladogram and a dichotomous key.

12.11.03 Identify the following basic animal types by their common characteristics: sponges, cnidarians, flatworms and roundworms, mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms, invertebrate chordates, and vertebrates.

Cell Biology

12.11.04 Identify the similarities and differences between plant and animal cells (i.e., know the various fundamental organelles of plant and animal cells and be able to distinguish these organelles in diagrams).

12.11.05 Understand how the semi-permeable membranes regulate the flow of substances in and out of the cell body.

12.11.06 Understand the role of the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus in the secretion of proteins.

12.11.07 Understand that chloroplasts in plant cells capture useable energy from sunlight and store it for future use by synthesizing sugar out of carbon dioxide and water.

12.11.08 Understand the role of mitochondria in making stored chemical-bond energy available to cells by completing the breakdown of glucose to carbon dioxide and water.

12.11.09 Understand that the chief energy-storing compound used by organisms is ATP (adenosine triophosphate).

12.11.10 Understand that enzymes are proteins that catalyze biochemical reactions and that the activity of enzymes depends on the temperature, ionic conditions, and the pH of the surroundings.

12.11.11 Understand how prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells (whether of animals or plants and whether unicellular or multicellular), and viruses differ in complexity and structure. In particular: 1. Prokaryotes are organisms whose cells lack nuclei. They are usually small and unicellular. 2. Eukaryotes are organisms whose cells have nuclei and membrane bound organelles. 3. A virus is a non-cellular particle usually made up of genetic material and protein that can invade living cells. Viruses are also much smaller than any unicellular organism (such as a bacterium) and cannot be seen with light microscopes but only with electron microscopes.

Genetics and Reproduction

12.11.12 Understand Mendel's law of segregation and also that genes do not always separate as hypothesized by Mendel's law of segregation. Understand that if genes are located close to each other on the same chromosome, then they are linked and may undergo independent assortment.

12.11.13 Identify and be able to apply the following concepts: trait, alleles, dominant allele, recessive allele, gametes, genotype, homozygous, heterozygous, chromosome, meiosis, and mitosis.

12.11.14 Answer questions about given Punnett squares.

12.11.15 Understand that meiosis is an early step in sexual reproduction in which the pairs of chromosomes separate and segregate randomly during cell division to produce gametes containing one chromosome of each pair. Understand that only certain cells in a multicellular organism undergo meiosis.

12.11.16 Understand how random chromosome segregation explains the probability that a particular allele will be in a gamete.

12.11.17 Know why about half of an individual's DNA sequence comes from each parent. Understand that most of the cells in a human contain pairs of 22 different autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes.

12.11.18 Understand that in humans there is a pair of chromosomes that determines sex: a female usually contains two X chromosomes and a male usually contains one X and one Y chromosome.

12.11.19 Understand how to predict possible combinations of alleles in a zygote from the genetic makeup of the parents for simple dominant/recessive traits.

12.11.20 Understand that a multicellular organism develops from a single zygote, and its phenotype (i.e. its outward appearance) depends on its genotype (i.e. its genetic makeup), which is established at fertilization.

12.11.21 Understand that, in all living things, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) carries the instructions for specifying the characteristics of each organism. Understand that DNA is a large polymer formed from four subunits: A, G, C, and T (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, a 5-carbon sugar and a phosphate). The chemical and structural properties of DNA explain how the genetic information that underlies heredity is both encoded in genes (as a string of molecular letters) and replicated (by a templating mechanism). Know that each DNA molecule in a cell is a single chromosome.

12.11.22 Understand that a gene is a set of instructions in the DNA sequence of each organism that specifies the sequence of amino acids in polypeptides characteristic of that organism.

12.11.23 Understand the general steps by which ribosomes synthesize proteins, using information from mRNA and from amino acids delivered by tRNA.

12.11.24 Understand that specialization of cells in multicellular organisms is usually due to different patterns of gene expression rather than to differences of the genes themselves.

12.11.25 Understand that natural selection acts on the phenotype, not the genotype, of an organism.

12.11.26 Understand that alleles that are lethal in a homozygous individual may be carried in a heterozygote and thus maintained in a gene pool.

12.11.27 Understand that variation within a species increases the likelihood that at least some members of a species will survive and reproduce under changed environmental conditions.

12.11.28 Understand that reproductive or geographic isolation can lead to speciation.

12.11.29 Understand that the millions of different species of plants, animals, and microorganisms that live on Earth today are related to each other by descent from common ancestors and that biological classifications are based on how organisms are related.

12.11.30 Understand how to analyze fossil evidence with regard to mass extinction, episodic speciation, and biological diversity.

Ecology and Adaptation

12.11.31 Understand the causes of ecosystem disruptions: changes in climate, human activity, introduction of a nonnative species, changes in population size, sudden natural disasters.

12.11.32 Know that fluctuations in population size are determined by the relative rates of birth, immigration, emigration, and death.

12.11.33 Know that concentrations of nonbiodegradable pollutants (e.g., pesticides) increase as we go up in a particular food chain (i.e., that the further we go in the direction of consumers whose food is tainted with pesticide, the more concentrated the levels of the pesticide). Understand that this process is called biological magnification.

12.11.34 Understand how agricultural run-off and pollution entering groundwater and surface water can affect drinking water and local wildlife.

12.11.35 Understand that a vital part of an ecosystem is the stability of its producers and decomposers.

12.11.36 Understand the effects upon the population of a species caused by various ecological factors, particularly (a) the presence of another species with competitive feeding habits, (b) the presence (or absence) of and number of predators, (c) the abundance or scarcity of food sources.