Biology

Context and Course

Many students find the jump from GCSE to post-16 Biology difficult as the course is very content heavy. There is a lot of detail and vocabulary to learn which must be applied to novel situations and data analysis in order to access the top grades. We follow the context led Edexcel Biology A (Salters -Nuffield) Course- Edexcel Biology A, https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-a-levels/biology-a-2015.html , studying Units 1-4 in Year 12 and 5-8 in Year 13 alongside the CPAC (Common Practical Assessment Criteria) qualification.

Suggested tasks

These tasks extend the GCSE concepts that need to be understood and applied at A Level and are designed to aid the transition between KS4 and KS5 Biology and to provide some idea of the increased depth, detail and terminology that the course involves.

Completing these will help ensure that the first term of studying biology is not such a leap and should increase confidence in coping with the inreased academic demands of the course.

Note also that 10% of any examination marks are for mathematical answers so being comfortable with basic mathematics such as calculating means, % change and volume as well as standard form and converting between different units e.g.mm to μm will also hep you to make progress.

Assignments

1. Go to https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/

2. Click on 'Classes and assignments' on the top of the page

3. Click on 'join class' and type in this class code:xfc3zngo9z

4. You should now be on a class called Transition 2026 with the following assignments in for you to complete:

The first two pieces work are on the circulatory https://app.senecalearning.com/dashboard/class/xfc3zngo9z/assignments/assignment/fafd05d5-52d3-461f-bf1c-5d9f3ca7b2f9 and pulmonary systems https://app.senecalearning.com/dashboard/class/xfc3zngo9z/assignments/assignment/91c7be74-c712-4ad1-953a-39930da0a40d as they are the first systems you will study.
There is also a quiz on some GCSE review topics to help you recall and reinforce some basic concepts https://app.senecalearning.com/dashboard/class/xfc3zngo9z/assignments/assignment/5f7ca845-5751-465f-9478-6d03fcd21a31
The last piece is a video to watch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dx7LDwINLU ) and a worksheet to complete (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LlEgpSqOog-6c1KNW_DPXBNTHBPVLjfQ/view?usp=sharing )that covers some of the biomolecules you will study and provides some idea of some of the chemistry involved in the course

If you have any questions, need help or advice please feel free to email me at culyatt@education.gg

Books, videos, journals and websites etc. containing interesting background information:

Books

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley- a compendium of ideas and thoughts pertaining to evolution and in particular how they might impact on being human.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - links the science of the immortal HeLa strain of cells, which is still used for research today, the civil rights movement in 1950s America and the ethics of scientific discovery. Consequently this is a perfect recommendation for any student studying any comination of History, Philosophy and Biology and links with TOK for IB students

Life Ascending: The Ten Greatest Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane - useful in building up and linking together the big ideas in biology

The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey - a well illustrated insight into the fascinating idea that your DNA changes over your lifetime

This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay- just because of its fun exploration of how humans can react to illness

Bad Pharma and/or Bad Science by Ben Goldacre- interesting discussions on how science is perceived by society

Videos

Ted talks

Anything by the 'King of Biology' Sir David Attenborough

The Crash Course series - has programmes on most topics

freesciencelessons.com, , Cognito and Osmosis on Youtube to revisit and refresh GCSE topics

Magazines, Newspapers and journals

New Scientist

Scientific American

Nature

Science

Biological Sciences Review

British Medical Journal

Any scientific articles in newspapers (eg the Guardian on Wednesday)

Websites

http://www.ibiblio.org/virtualcell/index.htm – An interactive cell biology site
http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/VL/GG – A web site showing illustrations of many processes of biotechnology
http://www.uq.oz.au/nanoworld – Visit the world of electron-microscopy
http://www.dnai.org/a/index.html – Explore the genetic code
http://nobelprize.org – Details of the history of the best scientific discoveries
http://nature.com – The site of the scientific journal
http://royalsociety.org – Podcasts, news and interviews with scientists about recent scientific developments
http://www.nhm.ac.uk – The London Natural History Museum’s website with lots of interesting educational material
http://www.bmj.com – The website of the British Medical Journal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment - The BBC news page for Science and the Environment

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