Unity & Diversity of Biological Systems: Interview with Dr. Vetter

Replacing AP Biology, OHS added a new course to the curriculum in 2023-2024: “Unity and Diversity of Biological Systems” (UDBS). This change is part of a new OHS policy to phase out all AP classes from the curriculum by the Fall of 2026 and replace them with equally advanced non-AP courses. To learn more about this change, Pixel Journal spoke with Dr. Kristina Vetter, a biology instructor at OHS, who is teaching the new course this year. 

Dr. Vetter came to OHS in 2014, and alongside AP Biology (now UDBS), she has taught Neuroscience and with Dr. Claire Dawkins, “team taught” the Introduction to Sex and Sexuality and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Sex and Sexuality, the latter of which she would “love to be involved in again.”

According to Dr. Vetter, the main motivation for this curriculum change was to “create more flexibility and responsiveness in the class.” Dr. Vetter explained that she hopes her students “ finish the class prepared for college biology and ready to major in the biological sciences if they so desire.” Despite the new curriculum, she still wants her students to be “awestruck by the natural world” to “better understand their own bodies.” Personally, Dr. Vetter is excited to develop “new assignments for assessing student learning,” such as “debuting a new ‘organelle presentation’ that is part of the midterm. This exciting assignment “will tie in organelle structure, metabolism, and transport along with the skills of creating slides and presenting content.”

Outside of the content covered in this course, Dr. Vetter’s research interests include “marine invertebrate fertilization and development and the interaction of gender and the brain,” both of which are topics she has written articles on in the past. However, currently she is  “choosing to spend [her] time outside of work on art, music, and the outdoors.”