A grade is available if requested.  

Save $8 when you use coupon code DANLEYFALL8 by September 4, 2024.

REFUND POLICY: Full refund until 12 hours after the first class meeting (6 hours in the summer).  If you do not notify me within 12 hours of the first class that you wish to be refunded, you will need to contact Outschool to request a refund through the Happiness Guarantee.  

This is a 16 week full-semester class that covers concepts in High School Biology.  Although technically Part 1 and Part 2 can be taken in any order, I will be integrating previous concepts into later classes, so that learners are able to see how concepts relate to each other and learn to solve problems by synthesizing together information from different concepts.  

Images, activities, and short experiments will help solidify the concepts in class.  During class I will teach by the Socratic method as much as possible while going over concepts and problems.  Toward the end of each class, we will do a worksheet together with problems and short answer questions that will help students master the topics for that class.  Also provided are optional homework problems with answers, reading assignments from an e-book, and project-based assignments that learners can do at home as well as three optional tests with answers so learners can check their understanding.  We will not, however, be doing full biology lab experiments with detailed lab reports. 

CLASS 1 - THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE
Properties of Atoms, Chemical Bonds, van der Waals Forces, Properties of Water, Solutions and Suspensions, Acids and Bases, the Chemistry of Carbon, Chemical Reactions

CLASS 2 - ECOLOGY
Biotic and Abiotic Factors, Producers and Consumers, Food Chains and Food Webs, the Water Cycle, Nutrient Cycles

CLASS 3 - ECOSYSTEMS AND COMMUNITIES
Climate, Niches, Communities, Symbioses, Succession, Biomes, Aquatic Ecosystems

CLASS 4: POPULATIONS
Population Growth, Limiting Factors, Human Population Growth, Resources, Biodiversity

CLASS 5: CELL STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes, Organelles, Cellular Transport

CLASS 6: PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Chlorophyll, Chloroplasts, and the Process of Photosynthesis, Light Dependent Reactions, Light Independent Reactions

CLASS 7: CELLULAR RESPIRATION AND FERMENTATION
Glycolysis, the Krebs Cycle, Electron Transport and ATP Synthesis, Fermentation

CLASS 8: CELL GROWTH AND DIVISION
Limits to Cell Size, Chromosomes, the Cell Cycle, Mitosis, Regulation of the Cell Cycle, Cellular Differentiation

CLASS 9: INTRODUCTION TO GENETICS
Gregor Mendel, Punnet Squares, Independent Assortment, Meiosis, Gene Linkage and Gene Maps

CLASS 10: DNA
Bacterial Transformation, Bacterial Viruses, the Structure of DNA, DNA Replication

CLASS 11: RNA AND PROTEIN SYNTHESIS
The Role of RNA, RNA Synthesis, Translation, Mutations, Gene Regulation and Expression

CLASS 12: HUMAN HEREDITY
Karyotypes, Transmission of Human Traits, Chromosomal Disorders, Manipulating DNA

CLASS 13 DARWIN'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Darwin's Observations, Lamarck's Evolutionary Hypotheses, Natural Selection, Evidence for Evolution

CLASS 14: EVOLUTION OF POPULATIONS
Genetic Variation, Genetic Drift, Speciation, Molecular Evolution

CLASS 15: CLASSIFICATION
The Linnean System, Cladograms, The Tree of Life

CLASS 16: THE HISTORY OF LIFE
The Fossil Record, Processes of Evolution, Early History of Earth