The biology STAAR is officially over, but the learning in class isn’t as students are going into their final unit of cell transport which can help set the stage for future science courses.

“I think Cell Transport is a very important concept that will show up in future science courses. If you have a basic understanding of the concept, it makes life that much easier in those courses,” biology teacher Farhana Razzaque said. “DNA technology is also a very new concept, and it is constantly evolving even today. You get to learn about ideas that are important to life & science courses, and then you get to learn about technology that is ‘happening now’.”

Putting in consistent effort into all school work is something that freshman Sahasra Dodda values.

“Personally, I think that Biology is a really diverse topic. To me, learning about the way things work never seemed boring, so I wasn’t really stressed about the class to begin with,” Dodda said. “Even though I’m not stressed, I do care about the amount of effort I put into my work because my grade still depends on it,”

In addition to this, having a full understanding of biology is important to freshman Hadley Chandler. 

“I think it makes sense to learn stuff after the STAAR,” Chandler said. “The teachers need to make sure our knowledge of [biology] is complete without rushing to cram everything in before the STAAR.”

The pressure of biology during the final unit is settling down for freshman Aishah Sayyed.

“I don’t feel stressed because the unit is pretty easy to understand and we don’t have a unit test,” Sayyed said. “Instead, we have a couple of projects that you can partner up and share the workload with.”

At the end of the day, learning for the sake of knowledge matters most to Razzaque.

“I always say that knowledge equals power. The more you know, the more powerful you are. The key takeaway from this specific unit is that technology is always changing and what works today may not tomorrow. It is important to be versatile and adapt to situations in life.”