The Goals of the Pre-AP* Science Program
Pre-AP* science courses should:
- prepare growing numbers of students, especially those traditionally underrepresented in AP* courses, for the challenges offered by the Advanced Placement Program.*
- introduce skills, concepts, and assessment methods to prepare students for success in AP and other challenging courses.
- provide extensive laboratory experience, which should include practice in designing experiments, interpreting data, and evaluating results.
- develop a student's ability to manipulate experimental data in various types of graphs and methods of analysis, including the concepts of best-fit lines, appropriate scales, slope, interpolation, and extrapolation, non-linear data, transformation to linear data, area under the curve, tangent line, equation for a line, regression analysis, and statistical tests.
- prepare students to use discipline-specific language to explain and discuss scientific information.
- make regular use of technology to help solve problems, experiment, interpret results, and verify conclusions.
- be a part of a well-planned and coherent curriculum so that teachers can build upon knowledge and skills that students have acquired in previous courses and can prepare students for subsequent courses.
- inspire students to take higher-level science classes.
- inspire students to choose science careers.
