Biology

Text: Biology, God’s Living Creation, Third Edition, A Beka Publisher

Course Description:
My hope is that through this survey of the plant and animal kingdoms, as well as human biology, we will have a greater appreciation for God and his amazing creation.
We will spend part of each class period on lecture and discussion of the reading assignment for the week. The second part of our session will consist of hands-on laboratory work.
In addition, the students will be expected to complete one major project where they design and run their own experiment. This experiment will be presented in class and/or the science fair and will be accompanied by a formal lab report. Smaller projects will be assigned as they coordinate with topics discussed in class. The project itself is NOT OPTIONAL and will be a significant portion of the student’s grade in the class. If you are not interested in participating in such an assignment you may want to consider dropping the course before it begins.

My Background:
My husband and I have been married since February of 2002. We have a daughter named Leah who was born in January of 2005 and a son named Will who was born July 7, 2006. Our family attends New Hope Fellowship Church in Westminster, Maryland.
I graduated from Western Maryland College, now known as McDaniel College, with a major in biology and minors in Spanish and Sociology. After completing my degree, I went to work at The Institute of Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. My job was to create DNA libraries in order to sequence genomes of various organisms. I soon realized that lab work was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life so I went back to graduate school where I earned a Master’s degree and Maryland teacher certification in secondary education. Since then I worked at Liberty High School in Eldersburg Maryland where I have taught Biology at three different levels, Ecology, AP Biology, Business math, SAT prep, and Freshmen Seminar. Since the fall of 2005, I have enjoyed working with the students at Cornerstone and I look forward to the upcoming school year.

Phone Contact:
Students and parents are encouraged to call me with any concerns or questions. I want to work closely with both parents and students and help you with your individual goals as homeschoolers. My home phone is 410-857-2398.

Homework:
Students will need to prepare well for each class session in order for this class to be a success. We will be doing in an hour and a half a week what most classes do in five to seven hours a week! I will email assignments for the week either Monday evening or
Tuesday. It will consist of a reading assignment, questions to answer based on the reading, and other worksheets or activities from time to time. Grades will be penalized for late submission. Please check the assignments each week because the syllabus is just a tentative guide to what we will be doing. I may rearrange topics, labs, and assignments as we work through the class.
I give frequent quizzes in class based on classroom lectures and assigned readings. Parents are asked to give comprehensive tests over the text material and grade the tests. The assignments that are sent out weekly will tell you when to give the tests. Due to the time restraint in class, some topics may not be covered during class time. These topics will be included in the weekly assignments so students are still responsible for this material on the tests. A student may contact me anytime if they do not understand something, even if we have not talked about it in class. Students may also bring up questions during class and I will do my best to cover all the material.

Evaluations:
I will send three evaluations during the course of the year: after the first seven weeks of the first semester, at the end of first semester, and at the end of second semester. These evaluations will consist of grades earned on homework assignments, quizzes given during class and any other projects that are graded by me. I will also have a place to include the test scores so students are expected to turn those in once they are completed and graded. They will be returned as soon as they are added to the evaluation. I will recommend a percentage for the class but parents are ultimately responsible to assign the overall grade.

Supplies:
There will be a $5 copy fee this year for biology. Many of the worksheets that we use have to be copied and these expenses add up quickly. Please pay this by the first week of class.

The required materials for this course are the Biology: God’s Living Creation text, lab manual, test book, and answer book for the tests (All books should be 3rd edition!!). I am also asking that the students have two pocket folders, a set of colored pencils, note cards, and a notebook for notes. The notebook can be a 3 ring binder or a spiral.
The folders are to maintain order while papers are passed between student and tutor. The students name should be on the folder and during each class I will ask for specific assignments from the week to be turned in. It may be one or it may be all that were assigned. The student will then put all requested papers in the folder to be turned in. The other folder will be used for current work, assignments that are being returned, assignments that aren’t being collected, and/or informational papers for parents.
As far as the other supplies are concerned, the colored pencils are for anatomy pages we will be doing and the note cards are to help learn the vast amount of new vocabulary that comes with learning biology. Finally, the notebooks are for taking notes during the lecture part of class.
Please do not hesitate to call me or e-mail me if there are any questions or if I have left something out. I am looking forward to working with this class and being able to study biology with an openly expressed awe of God’s creation.

Please read Mrs. Pearre's Biology Class Expectations before you register for her class.

Tutor: Shelly Pearre