Whenever the weather turns cold and Term 2 rolls around, AP Biology and AP Chemistry students prepare for an infamous class to be added to their schedule: lab.

Led by chemistry teacher Jeanette Stewart and biology teachers Stephen Lorys and Peter Spalitto, lab students spend 12 weeks diving deeper into course concepts by seeing a real world application of how they work.

Although their course load nearly doubles, students leave the class with a deeper understanding of concepts in two challenging classes as well as life skills on how to manage their time and work hard.

In AP Chemistry Lab, students begin the term with a full procedure on how to perform the lab, but by the end, Stewart gives them an unknown substance that they must identify on their own, creating their own procedure and conclusion.

That experiment alone illustrates the problem solving skills that lab classes provide for students, skills that will prove helpful even if the student does not pursue science in college and beyond.

AP Chemistry student Merritt Grassi shared her views of the class. “Chem lab has helps me gain a deeper understanding of how the experiments work to formulate everyday substances and how they are used in our everyday lives,” Grassi said.

In AP Biology lab, students dive deeper into cellular respiration by using a respirometer to measure the difference in respiration rates across different temperatures as well as between crickets and germinating peas.

AP Biology student Anna Cochran had this to say. “In AP Bio lab we do interesting experiments and work hard to write up lab reports. It is one of my favorite classes because I have learned not to procrastinate,” Cochran said.

As Term 2 comes to an end, lab students will apply what they learned in lab to the AP exams and rely on their time management and problem solving skills in future courses.