Future AP Biology Students

Dear Future AP Biology students,
Congratulations on taking AP Bio. This is a challenging and rewarding class that will teach you a ton of new things. The biggest piece of advice I can offer you is don't procrastinate anything, I'm sure you read this on nearly every other blog but it's really the most important thing to consider when taking a challenging class. I procrastinated a lot of things in this class and this made it very difficult to do well. The longer you wait the worse it is. My second piece of advice is always do the reading and extra credit reading guides. I didn't always do these and i regretted it on every test i didn't do them for. The reading assignments might not seem relevant when Mr. Landry assigns them but they really are important. I also found it helpful to go through previous years tests that Mr. Landry will put on the Google Drive. This is probably the best way to study & reinforce what you have learned in class. I hope this advice is helpful to you next year. Good luck with AP Bio!

                                                           What I Learned in AP Bio
I learned so much in AP Bio this year. Biology is a broad field and their is always something to be learned. I know that i learned something new every day of class. Biology is a great class because you can connect it to basically all other sciences. Taking AP bio helped me a lot in chemistry because many of the concepts were related.  Other than the obvious ideas and concepts associated with biology I learned a lot about  time management, hard work, and good study habits. I learned the importance of studying and I also learned better study techniques. Also I learned the importance of reading assignments (They don't seem that important until it's too late). Everything I learned in this class will benefit me when i go to college, I am glad i learned new study and work habits before i leave high school. Overall, AP Bio was a great class and you will learn a ton of new things.

                                                                  If I Were an Organelle
If I had to choose to be an organelle I would have to choose the lysosome. The lysosome fascinates me with the amazing things it does for the cell. The main function of a lysosome is to use it's powerfuul digestive enzymes to break things down that are unnecessary or harmful to the cell, the lysosome can even be triggered to kill the entire cell through a process known as apoptosis which is why the lysosome is often referred to as the suicide organelle.

Although the lysosome is a fascinating organelle it can unfortunately get diseases. One common disease that many lysosomes are effected by is lysosomal storage disorder or LSD's, these are inherited disorders caused by a deficiency of specific enzymes that are required for the breakdown of certain complex carbohydrates, because the necessary enzymes are not present the carbohydrate will build up in the lysosome disrupting the natural function of the cell.

 Fun facts about the lysosome:

• The lysosome uses about 40 different enzymes to aid in digestion 
• The interior of a lysosome has a PH of about 4.8
• The word lysosome comes from two different greek words: "lysis" meaning destruction and "soma" meaning body

What interests me about the lysosome is the fact that such a small organelle could save someone's life from a disease like cancer. If something goes wrong with the cell's mitosis process the lysosome can be triggered to kill off the entire cell. It is a tiny organelle with a huge job.