Guided Notes for AP Biology

After using reading guides for AP Biology for years I started thinking that maybe I was ready for a change. Since the last time I taught AP Bio, we have changed to Biology in Focus 4th Edition and truth be told, I didn't want to have to revise all of the reading guides for the new edition. This seemed the perfect opportunity to try something different, or revisit an old method, the structure strips that I used when I taught Honors Biology. Here's a link to that post.

For AP Biology, each strip includes one topic from the CED, the learning objective(s) (LOs) under that topic as well as the essential knowledge statements (EKs). Some topics did need more than one strip. Fortunately, Winnie Sloan shared all of her Unit documents in the National AP Biology Facebook group, so I could fairly easily copy the LOs and EKs from those documents. vs. from the CED which doesn't always copy and paste well. 

The other thing I added were suggested pages from the textbook (Biology in Focus, 4th edition) for students to go to. These can be found under the topic and in green. My hope was to improve those page numbers as we go through the year, but I haven't actually revised any even though I've talked with students about some more specific page suggestions. 

Here are each of the units in note strip form. One note, I give guided reading over the summer for topics 1.1 and 1.2, so my strips start at topic 1.3

Unit 1

Unit 2

Unit 3

Unit 4

Unit 5

Unit 6

Unit 7

Unit 8

AP Statistics Plans for the Year

With the CED update for the 2026-2027 school year, I needed to update my plans for the year. I love Math Medic and use their lessons for each of topics of the course. I also really love Skew the Script, so I use Math Medic for our class lessons and Skew the Script for homework. I'll share my year plans below. In my school, AP Stats meets four times a week each for 55 minutes a period. 

My daily plans for the year in AP Statistics. 

An AP Statistics FRQ for "Moneyball"

Since I had a few weeks of school after the AP Stats exam, we spent two and a half classes watching the movie Moneyball. I wanted watching the movie to be a low key activity, but also wanted to have some academic value attached besides just answering a set of questions about the movie itself. I asked Gemini to make an FRQ similar to AP Statistics FRQs with topics within the CED and also within the context of Moneyball. Here's the Moneyball FRQ. I did format it a little differently and fixed up the computer output, but didn't change any of the numbers. The rubric is right after the question. 

Of course after I asked Gemini to make the FRQ, I finally had time to look at and work on the released FRQs from the 2026 exam. I think FRQ 6 is a perfect Moneyball question! Maybe I'll use that one next year when we are watching the movie in class.

An AP Environmental Science FRQ for "The Martian"

Since I teach in New York, even though we're a private school, we have about three or four weeks of classes after the AP exam. We work on eco-columns during this time, but I don't need all of the class periods to work on this. We spend about half of the class time taking measurements from the eco-columns and then we've been watching The Martian during the second half of class. In the end, I think we'll take 4 days to finish the movie. I want this time in class to be low key, but not so low key that students completely check out. Instead of a long sheet of questions to fill out as students watch the movie, I decided to ask Gemini to make an FRQ using task verbs and topics from AP Environmental Science that corresponds to the Martian. This allows students more practice for FRQs since they still have a final exam to take for me, but is still not a huge assignment. 

I was happy with what Gemini gave me and appreciated the rubric that goes along with it. 

Here's a link to the Martian FRQ. The rubric comes right after the FRQ itself. 

Right Triangle Scavenger Hunt for Geometry

 

I use Math Medic for all of the math classes I teach and they made a scavenger hunt for AP Precalculus that I love. This year, I've returned to teaching Geometry and at least in the beginning unit, the Math Medic Geometry units didn't include review activities. I decided to try my hand at making scavenger hunts to review some of the Geometry units. The first two that I made, I used questions from Math Medics assessment platform, so I'm not free to share those resources. When the class got to right triangle trigonometry, I made another scavenger hunt, but this time used questions from past Geometry Regents exams. This hunt I can share, since past exam questions are publicly available. 

The premise of a scavenger hunt: Start at any lettered question that's taped around the classroom and write the letter down on paper or a whiteboard. Solve the question and the correct answer choice will lead you to the next question to find. Continue until you've answered all questions. If done correctly, the last question's answer will bring you back to the letter you began with. Most students won't begin with the first letter, but can figure out the secret word that the letters spell by the end. The word also makes it easy for me to check their answers no matter what letters they've been to because I know what order the letters should be in. 

Here's my Geometry Right Triangle Trig Scavenger Hunt.

AP Environmental Science LOs and EKs for all Units

 

So, I finally finished polishing up the documents for the last three units of AP Environmental Science. If you need any other information about what these include or what I use them for, you could check out this post. Here are the links for each unit:

Unit 1 "I can" statements

Unit 2 "I can" statements

Unit 3 "I can" statements

Unit 4 "I can" statements

Unit 5 "I can" statements

Unit 6 "I can" statements

Unit 7 "I can" statements

Unit 8 "I can" statements

Unit 9 "I can" statements

My AP Statistics Plans for Notes and Homework

 I'm teaching AP Statistics for the first time this year. I'm using Math Medic for class activities and notes. Math Medic is my go-to for all of my math classes. I don't have Math Medic's assessment platform for AP Stats, but I felt I needed more practice for students than just the check your understanding questions. We do have a textbook, but it isn't easily organized by topic, so I wanted another source for practice questions.  

I had heard Skew the Script referenced regularly in the AP Stats communities that I'm a part of, so decided that I would use their practice sets. Over the summer, I planned out every day of the year to make sure we would get through all of the content before the AP exam. 

Both Math Medic and Skew the Script provide answer keys to each of their lessons, which is helpful to me as a first year Stats teacher.

In my year-long plans, I include the name and number of the Math Medic lesson and the lesson number of the Skew the Script lesson as well as the topic numbers from the AP Statistics CED. 

Here are my AP Statistics Unit Plans.