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Sunday, October 29, 2023

Fillable Lab Sheets for AP Environmental Science Labs


Another one of my new classes for this year is AP Environmental Science.  Since we are a one to one device school, my goal is for students to complete as many lab analyses by Google Docs as possible. This saves lots of photocopies. A surprising bonus is that I am finding the labs faster to grade this way. Labs that are turned in through Google Classroom as google docs can be commented on. I can quickly type in a few comments to students' lab and count comments to determine the grade. 

One other I like about making fillable labs in Google docs is using 1-cell tables for the answers. Otherwise I find myself searching for answers that blend in with questions.

The labs themselves with teacher editions and student editions with procedures can be found in AP Classroom for Environmental Science if you are an approved teacher. 

I'll add links to the three labs that I've made fillable answer sheets for. If I could find a fillable lab sheet that someone else had done, I used them and didn't reinvent the wheel.


AP Lab #1: Primary Productivity

AP Lab #2: Species Diversity

AP Lab #7: Physical and Chemical Properties of Soil

Monday, October 9, 2023

Finishing Up Unit 1 of Pre-AP Algebra 2


One afternoon toward the end of summer, I got a phone call while at the orthodontist with my youngest daughter. I was a little surprised to see the call was from the head of the math department at my school.  The call was to ask me if I would consider taking on one of the Pre-AP Algebra 2 classes. I was actually delighted to take on another math class, although it meant an overload in an already busy year for me. My class load already included AP Environmental Science, which is brand new for me, and AP Precalculus which is a brand new curriculum. The only prepped and familiar class for this year is AP Biology. 

One of the benefits of Pre-AP Algebra 2 is that the curriculum is primarily put together, although I'm finding that it still takes some time to prep the lessons. Fortunately, unit 1 had lessons for each of the topics except for the last one. Key concept 1.3: Graphing Absolute Value as Piecewise Defined Functions didn't have a lesson. Before the year started I decided to teach the concept through a Desmos activity. I'm still about a week away from using this lesson, but wanted to share it in case it may be helpful to someone else. Feel free to let me know if you catch any errors. I'll also make adjustments as my students try it and help me find any issues.

Here's the link to Absolute Value as a Piecewise Function.