The science behind life is a class

Mr. Rick McKinney is a biology and anatomy teacher. In early March, in his biology classes, students were learning about speciation and certain mechanisms that can cause species to no longer be able to form offspring. Katheryne Jurado said that they begin class every day with a warm up. They also do not receive a lot of homework, but don’t get a lot of free time in class. She says she feels like biology is important because it’s the study of life. “My favorite thing about this class is learning new things like different animals that aren’t common and different types of plants,” said Jurado. Her goals for the end of this semester are to improve her learning techniques and extend her vocabulary.

Ms. Lori Rockwell is also a biology teacher, but her classes tend to be a little different because they are International Baccalaureate (IB) level. In those classes, they are discussing cells, the human body system, general environmental issues, and a little bit of plant science. According to Monica Braun, Ms. Rockwell’s IB Biology classes begin class each day with a warm-up. The textbook they use is an IB diploma program biology textbook. “It feels pretty good to be in a class like this because everyone has really smart minds,” said Braun. “Everyone gets along pretty well, and we have a really awesome teacher.” Since this is an IB class, they are required to write an internal assessment and they are told to never cheat on anything or else they won’t be able to receive their diploma.

For Braun, her favorite thing about biology is learning about the human body systems, like the nervous system. They do a lot of group activities but not many class activities. She said that the only thing hard about biology is the fact that it involves a lot of memorization. One thing she has learned in this class is about cellular respiration. Her goal for the end of this semester is to get an A in this class.