Summer science fun

It may be summer outside, but this week inside West Valley High School it was all about AP biology for more than a dozen students.

Teacher Stephen Warren drew an odd-looking creature on the board, which looked like a big lump with feet and what seemed to be freckles. “This is not a whale rolled in sand,” he said. “This is a crustacean.”

It was a water flea, in fact, the favorite food of rainbow trout found in area lakes. Warren directed the students to do a natural selection simulation, with colored foam squares representing the lake and different colored dots in place of water fleas. One student in each team was the designated predator and removed the 10 most visible “fleas” of 20 on the foam square.

The students soon learned that if their board was yellow, the yellow dots blended in while the other colors stood out. The “fleas” that didn’t blend in were quickly eaten.

This simulation is one of the many fun exercises he never had time to teach during the regular AP Biology class, Warren said. This is the first year West Valley is offering AP Biology as a two-year class. In the past, students enrolled in a one-year class in September and took the AP exam the following May.

“It was hugely a mess,” Warren said. “In the end we were doing a chapter a day. It’s no fun for me and it’s no fun for them.”

Now the class is spread over two years, plus two weeks of summer school this year and next. “They should be pretty darn good biologists after two years.”

It is very unusual for an AP class to be spread out that way, but Warren said it will give him a chance to go over the material in more depth and add in some fun activities. “We’re not going to skip any details,” he said. “Most of the really good stuff is stuff I had to leave out last year.”

The week of summer school this month, plus a week in June, is technically not required. But students who didn’t sign up for the summer school classes will have to make up the labs and assignments on their own time. Sophomore Emily Nelson said she’d rather do it now. “It’s easier to do it during the summer than make it up during the school year,” she said. “It’s only two weeks.”

Sophomore Ashley Wilhelm said she was a little uneasy about enrolling in the advanced class but is now a fan. “It’s really interesting,” she said. “I’m having a good time. It’s hard, but I like it.

“I was a little scared I wasn’t going to be able to do it, but I can,” she said.

Having his students come to summer school has also given Warren an added bonus: he has gotten to know his students and already knows which pals should never be assigned together as lab partners. And students have gotten a taste of what the class will be like.

“We spent two weeks getting to know each other,” he said. “They know what to expect.”