hello everyone in today's video we're going to be talking about labs in AP [Music] biology whether you're watching this video because you're curious about the labs you're going to do in AP biology or you're getting a refresher on all the labs that you did at the end of the year as you're preparing for the exam hopefully this video will be helpful to you there is no set of specific Labs that you have to do in the class the AP biology course and exam description states that 25% of your instructional time should be devoted to inquiry based laboratory experiences but but that doesn't mean that there are prescribed Labs that you have to do in order to be successful on the AP biology exam or to complete the course the goal of the class is to give you experiences to practice different science practices some of which relate directly to Labs but there's no specific set of labs that you have to memorize in order to do well on the exam the more laboratory experience you do have especially on the inquiry side of things I keep throwing around this term inquiry and I'm not going to spend time in this video explaining exactly what it is because there's different levels of inquiry you can do in laboratory experiment ments but stay tuned for a future video where I dive into everything that inquiry means in a science class the more successful you will probably be in the course just because you've gotten a chance to experience a lot of different of the biology concept that you're going to be learning in different contexts and teachers do have the freedom to choose which labs they want to do to teach the concepts that they have to cover in the course they can also do labs in any order so Labs you do in class may be very different it also may be dependent on the materials your teachers or School may have access to so some of these Labs might be virtual instead of in person or you might do variations on some of these labs to get at similar concepts with completely different materials and setups so I'm going to cover some of the popular Labs that are done and maybe you'll see some of these pop up in your class or maybe you've done completely different versions of these Labs throughout the year all right let's get started a lot of teachers start the year with some sort of General kind of warm-up inquiry based lab commonly this is transpiration in Plants where students are testing plants exposed to different conditions and measuring the rate of transporation through amount of mass loss over time you might also start out the year with just a la La protocols and lab materials lab where you learn how to swap for cheek cells or use pip pets or just follow a procedure now at the end of each of these Labs you do throughout the year there could be a variety of follow-ups that you do you could have to do a full Lab write up with a rubric that your teacher provides or use claim evidence and reasoning to explain the information that you found and how it relates to a particular scientific idea or principle or you might just need to answer a few questions it really depends on your teacher and how they've decided to incorporate the lab into your class let's get back to it early on in the year you'll also be learning about different statistical analyses and the aai square lab with m&m is a really popular one to teach this concept as you get into your first unit and you're learning about the chemistry of life you may do a simple lab to explore the properties of water even though there may not be very much inquiry involved in this particular lab you might also do some laboratory demo or activity where you are investigating the different biological macromolecules in different foods by identifying different biomolecules using a particular indicator next you may do a lab investigating surface area to volume ratios and you may be asked to analyze and measure amounts of pigment that diffuse in certain areas of a model cell there might be other osmosis and diffusion Labs that you participate in even doing the classic one using dialysis tubing or potato cores and seeing how different materials can move in and out of semi-permeable membranes you may do a lab with Alodia which is an aquatic plant and seeing how it cells chain in either hypotonic or hypertonic Solutions or you may even be asked to calculate water potential using dialysis tubing once again as you get into talking about enzymes you might do a lab with petalas and either liver or potatoes and seeing how the reaction rates differ in different conditions or you may be asked to calculate different rates of enomatic reactions once you get to Cellular energetics there's lots of different Labs you can do with regards to fermentation photosynthesis cellular respiration yeast fermentation labs are a very common one and sometimes these can be more activities or demos instead of labs but seeing how different how fermentation rates differ in different conditions that you'll put the yeast in or maybe you'll inactivate the yeast by boiling it first and then measuring the rate of reaction if you have different lab equipment like CO2 sensors maybe you'll do a respiration lab with live organisms or with peas and look at respiration with peas frozen peas and non-frozen peas and Beads as a control and then design a different experiment with a living organism like a plant or small insect yourself you might do a photosynthesis investigation with chromatography and to see how different pigments separate in spinach leaves or you might do a photosynthesis investigation with Leaf discs that you cut off from something like spinach and see what different conditions are going to cause rates of photosynthesis to change as you get into cell communication and the cell cycle a lot of times this switches to modeling or observational experiment so you may be asked to observe mitosis in onion root cells or fish blastula and count the different cells in different stages of mitosis you might model chromosomes using beads you might even find an online demonstration of mitosis that gives you more opportunities to manipulate what's happening this is where virtual Labs can be really useful cuz you can see things like tissue samples from real cancer patients if your teacher provides those resources from online as you get into genetics you might be lucky enough to do a fruit FY lab in your class where you investigate the genetics and the patterns of inheritance of dropa or you could find very good Virtual Lab models that could act as your lab for this unit too as you get into biotechnology these are some other labs that if you don't have the materials for you might find virtual experiences online you could be doing restriction enzyme analysis of DNA you could be doing gel electropheresis PCR even bacterial transformation if your teacher gets one of the kits from a particular Lab company this is always really fun and satisfying when it works but there's less opportunity for open inquiry where you get to do your own investigation just because with the lab materials and protocols there's not a lot of wiggle room here as you get into Evolution you'll be doing some Hardy Weinberg activities and doing modeling with spreadsheets maybe you'll get to use online models like Evo dots or something else to investigate natural selection in real time and AP biology suggests doing some investigations play with blast the database and provides you with sample Gene f files to investigate evolutionary relationships between organisms you might do some other labs during this time to investigate different pieces of evidence for evolution or look at real life data from finches in the Gago you might encounter is an artificial selection lab Under the Umbrella of evolution where you're growing fast plants these are specific types of plants from a kit and then you're selecting for particular traits and seeing if they appear in the Next Generation you might then get into animal behavior Labs investigating things like fruit flies or isopods and different Choice Chambers to see their behaviors in different conditions there's also lots of good virtual labs when we get into ecology and you want to investigate population biology you might be able to actually go outside and calculate biodiversity with Simpsons diversity index or maybe you'll investigate acid rain and do your own inquiry lab with different concentrations of acids and seed germination maybe at the end of the year you'll even design your own lab completely from scratch on based on any of the concepts that you've studied in AP biology so far this year of course some teachers may also do dissections this of course is not necessarily part of the AP biology curriculum and there's plenty plent of other labs and activities that you might do throughout the year I didn't mention common things like DNA extractions measuring sunscreen Effectiveness germinating seeds regularly not with acid rain doing Bottle biology where you investigate factors that affect ecosystems there's also countless case studies you can work on really the possibilities are endless in a lot of cases you get to decide where these Labs go I hope this video has been helpful and giving you a preview of some of the demos and Labs that you'll get to do in AP biology or that you already did this year let me know in the comments below what other labs have come up in your courses remember even if you didn't do any of the labs that I mentioned and your teacher does some things that are completely different than the ones I named in this video you'll still be set up for Success on the exam because the exam doesn't ask you to memorize anything about any particular lab as long as you have practiced these sign practices throughout the year thanks so much for watching give this video a like if it's been helpful and I'll see you [Music] later