A. Interactions of living things
1. Biotic and Abiotic
2. Relationships between populations, communities, ecosystems, and the biosphere
3. Functions of producers, consumers, and decomposers
4. Food chains and food webs
5. Habitat and niche
6. Competition
7. Predators and prey
8. Symbiotic relationships (mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism)
B. Cycles in Nature
1. Water cycle
2. Carbon cycle
3. Nitrogen cycle
4. Ecological succession
C. Earth's ecosystems
1. Characteristics of Earth's biomes
2. Importance of plankton in marine ecosystems
3. Coral reefs and intertidal areas
D. Environmental problems and solutions
1. Major types of pollution
2. Renewable and nonrenewable resources
3. Habitat destruction
4. Impact of human population growth
5. Importance of conservation
6. Habitat protection
7. Ways to help protect the environment
E. Energy resources
1. How humans use natural resources
2. Renewable and nonrenewable resources
3. Conservation of natural resources
4. Classify the different forms of fossil fuels
5. How fossil fuels are obtained
6. Problems with fossil fuels
7. Dealing with fossil fuel problems
8. Alternatives to the use of fossil fuels
9. Advantages and disadvantages of using alternative energy resources
II. Cells, Heredity, and Classification
A. The cell theory
1. Cellular organization
2. Unicellular organisms vs. multicellular organisms
B. Structure and function of cells
1. Cell wall: support and protection
2. Cell membrane: doorway of the cell
3. Nucleus: control center of the cell
4. Endoplasmic reticulum: transportation system of the cell
5. Ribosomes: protein factories of the cell
6. Mitochondria: powerhouse of the cell
7. Vacuoles: storage tanks for the cells
8. Lysosome: cleanup crews for the cell
9. Chloroplast: energy producers of the cell
C. Cell processes
1. Metabolism
2. Respiration
3. Diffusion
4. Osmosis
5. Active transport
D. Heredity
1. Gregor Mendel
2. How genes and alleles are related to genotypes and phenotypes
3. Using Punnett Squares
4. Mitosis and Meiosis
E. Genes and gene technology
1. Structure of DNA
2. How DNA molecules are copied
3. Relationships between genes and proteins
4. Mutations
5. Pedigree
F. Classification
1. The seven levels of classification
2. Importance of scientific names
3. Using dichotomous keys to identify organisms
4. The six kingdoms and characteristics of each