AP Biology Unit 1 Mod. 1

What is biology?

The study of life

What are organisms?

The living beings that display all the properties of life.

What is a gene?

A single unit of heredity

What is a genome?

All of the genetic information that an organism contains

What is a cell?

The smallest unit of life that can self-reproduce and exist independently.

What are the 4 big ideas of AP Biology?

Evolution, Energetics, Information Storage and Transmission, and Systems Interactions

What is a species?

A group of interbreeding organisms that produce fertile offspring.

What is evolution?

Change over time

What is the most significant mechanism that evolution occurs by?

Natural Selection

What is natural selection?

A mechanism of evolution in which some individuals survive and reproduce more than others in a particular environment as a result of variation that can be passed onto the ne=xt generation.

What may be life’s most important property?

The capacity for Darwinian evolution

What is energy?

The ability to do work

What the study of energetics?

Examining the properties of energy and how energy is distributed in biological, chemical, or physical procesess.

What can losing or reducing access to energy do to organisms?

It could have damaging or sometimes fatal consequences.

What does the word ‘information’ in Information Storage and Transmission refer to?

The instructions that all cells hav that in art determine what they look like and how they function.

DNA real name

Deoxyribonucleic acid

What is DNA

The carrier of genetic information for all organisms.

Why is DNA remarkeable?

It can store genetic information, allow this information to be retrieved and used by the cell, and transmit this information to the next generation.

What is a system?

A group of things that function together as a whole

What do biologists call living organisms?

biotic

What do biologists call nonliving organisms?

abiotic

What is a biological system made up of?

Biotic and abiotic entities reacting with each other.

What is an emergent property?

A property of a system that the individual parts do not have on their own.

What is scientific inquiry?

The process that scientists use to ask questions and seek answers about the natural world in a deliberate and organized way.

What is scientific inquiry limited to?

Investigations in the natural world

What does scientific inquiry allow you to observe, investigate, and explain?

How do natural phenomena occur?

What are the 3 parts of scientific inquiry?

Exploration, Investigation, and Communication

What do scientists do in the exploration stage of the scientific inquiry?

They make observations and ask questions.

What is observation?

The act of viewing the world around us.

What do observations allow us to do?

Ask focused questions about nature

What is the next step in the scientific inquiry after formulating questions?

They consult the scientific literature.

Having reviewed enough literature, what should the scientist be able to do?

Refine questions that would be interesting to investigate 

What is a hypothesis?

A tentative explanation for one or more observations, and it makes predictions that can be tested by experiments or additional observations

What is a hypothesis not?

A hunch or idea

How do scientists collect data?

Through observations or experimentations

What is a controlled experiment?

A powerul type of experiment

What are the 2 groups in a controlled experiment?

The control and experiment group

Which group experiences the variable?

The experiment group

Does the control group experience a variable?

no

Why is having a control group important?

So that you can see if any changes ocurred in the experimental group.

What is the independent variable?

The variable that is manipulated to test the hypothesis

What is the dependent variable?

The variable that is expected to vary according to the independent variable.

What is a negative control group?

A group where the expectation is that no change will happen.

What is a positive control group?

A group that receives a variable with a known result.

What is qualitative data?

A descriptive explanation

What is quantitative data?

Data that is expressed numerically

What is a null hypothesis?

A prediction that nothing will change

What is an alternative hypothesis?

A prediction that something will change