Options for Extra Credit

Extra credit can be earned as long as all of your assignments are turned in. You can accumulate points on a routine basis, you can not accumulate over 20 points in the last two weeks of the grading period. All extra credit must be turned in one week prior to the end of the grading period. Points earned from extra credit do not transfer over to the next grading period. You can not increase your overall grade by more than 5% / semester.

Various units will have unique extra credit opportunities. You can always do an outside reading assignment for extra credit in any unit.

Outside reading assignment:

Biology is the study of life and therefore, not something that is just studied in the classroom I want you to realize how common and important biology is. To earn credit you are to read and summarize in 2-3 paragraphs an article or TV program concerning a biological topic. It is very easy to locate articles in the paper, magazines, & Internet. After reading the article, summarize it in your own words. As you summarize the article underline the scientific terminologies used and define it. End your summary with a personal comment about the article. An example follows:

Article Title: “New drug can help stop hair pulling”

Source: Valley Daily News 8/24/89

The saying “I’m so mad I could pull my hair out” is usually taken in jest. But, surprisingly there is a type of mental illness that causes people to pull out their hair, it’s called trichotillomania. This condition afflicts approximately 3 million people who are virtually all women. These women cannot stop themselves from plucking out their eyebrows, eyelashes & head hair. They often paint on eyebrows & wear wigs to cover up their obsession.

The new drug called clomipramine “allows them to say no, they still have the urge, but their ability to resist the urge is increased”. The drug allows some to completely stop while in others it at least decreases the amount of hair pulled. Unfortunately the medicine hasn’t been approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for routine use. However, doctors can obtain it for treating severe cases.

It always surprises me how many different kinds of chemical imbalances can cause such a variety of mental & physical disorders. It’s scary to think that because a person’s body fails to produce a certain chemical they respond by pulling out their hair and because of that believe that they’re crazy. It’s amazing how intricate and delicate the human body is.

At home experiments: There are several books and web sites that describe experiments and/or demonstrations that deal with biology. You can run one of these at home, recording your results and presenting it in writing or orally to the class. Please pre-approve the experiment/demonstration with me.

Web Reviews: Several web sites have activities, animations, video clips, etc that deal with biological topics. Visit one of the listed sites and engage in an activity that interests you. Note the time & dates spent on the site and summarize what you learned from doing the activity and what you liked and didn’t like about the site. Here are some good sites.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hotscience www.accessexcellence.org/AE/mspot

www.sciam.com www.learn.genetics.utah.edu/

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sheppard/analyze.html

www.biocourse.com/mhhe/bcc/domains/biolabs.xsp

www.becominghuman.org www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/vlabs/index.html

www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/biolink/j_explorations

Web Resources:

http://nhscience.lonestar.edu/biol/ap1int.htm Anatomy & Physiology I Animations
Movies & Interactive Tutorial Links

http://nhscience.lonestar.edu/biol/ap2int.htm Anatomy & Physiology II Animations
Movies & Interactive Tutorial Links

http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animation.html Animation Gallary

http://www.biostudio.com/a_sitemap.htm Biology Animations

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072437316/sitemap.html?Mor Animations by McGraw-Hill

www.hhmi.org Howard Hughes Medical Institute: Info, cool science, animations, interactive, videos

www.wellcome.ac.uk/Education-resources/index.htm Wellcome Trust DNA & disease animations

www.dnalc.org Dolan DNA Learning Center: DNA & Cancer activities