Biology Book for CIHS: Recent Episodes
John Dutton
This podcast is a chapter-by-chapter audio accompaniment for the biology book at Campus International High School in Cleveland, Ohio.
Living organisms use matter and energy to create a wide variety of organic molecules (e.g., proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids) and to allow life to happen in growth, reacting to the environment, reproduction and movement. Ecosystems also recycle many materials, such as water, carbon and nitrogen.
How many organisms are in an ecosystem and where they are is limited by how well the ecosystem recycles materials and by how much food, water, space and shelter is available.
By making observations about the world, experiments can be designed that test for a dependent variable, which depends on the independent variable (that the scientist controls).
Biological classification represents how organisms are related with species being the most specific part. Biologists arrange organisms into a hierarchy of groups and subgroups based on similarities and differences, which have to do with how closely related they are
Science is a method of investigation, based on observation, testing hypotheses, measurement, experimentation, and creating theories. This leads to better explanations of the way the world works.
Geologic time can be estimated in many ways. For example, rock sequences, matching up fossils and radiometric dating.
Understand how the diversity in an ecosystem and the adaptation of organisms to an ecosystem relates to structures and their functions in living organisms. Natural selection helps explain the diversity of life.
Natural selection means that there are random differences in characteristics that organisms inherit from their parents. These characteristics may give individuals an advantage or disadvantage compared to others in surviving and reproducing. The advantaged offspring are more likely to survive and reproduce. In this way, there will be more of the organisms with advantageous characteristics. When an environment changes, characteristics that give an organism an advantage may change.
Recognize that a change in gene frequency (the number of organisms that have a gene) in a population over the course of years is an important aspect of biological evolution.
Describe historical scientific developments that happened in evolutionary thought. For example, Lamarck and Darwin and Mendelian Genetics.
A gene is a piece of information passed from parents to offspring, and genes often are in different forms called alleles. For example, the gene for pea plant height has two alleles, tall and short.
Understand the relationship of the structure and function of DNA to protein synthesis and the characteristics of an organism.
Use the concepts of Mendelian and non-Mendelian genetics to explain inheritance. For example, incomplete dominance, independent assortment, sex-linked traits and linkage.
Compare the structure, function and the relationships of cell organelles in eukaryotic cells and prokaryotic cells. For example, nucleus, chromosome, mitochondria, cell membrane, cell wall, chloroplast, cilia, flagella.
Living cells: are made up of just a few important chemical elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur); are the basic unit of structure and function of all living things; come from other cells after life began; and are different from viruses
Based on what happens inside of cells, the characteristics of life include: homeostasis, transfers of energy, transportation of molecules, disposal of wastes, creation of new molecules