Biology
Context
Many students find the jump from GCSE to IB and A Level Biology difficult as both courses are very content heavy. There is a lot of detail and vocabulary to learn which the student must be able to apply to novel situations and data analysis in order to access the top grades.
Suggested tasks
These tasks extend the GCSE concepts that you need to understand and be able to apply at KS5 and are designed to aid that transition in Biology and to give you some idea of the increased depth, detail and terminology that the courses involve.
Completing these will help you make progress during the first term of studying biology for both A Level and IB.
Note also that 10% of any examination marks are for mathematical answers so you should be 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.
Assignments
1. Go to https://app.senecalearning.com/dashboard
2. Click on 'Classes and assignments' on the top of the page
3. Click on 'join class' and type in this class code:q0v5yenmtv
4. You should now be on a class called Transition 2022 with the following assignments in for you to complete:
One section will provide you with an idea of the chemistry of various macromolcules (carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, DNA and RNA) you will come into contact with during these courses.
Another set is on cell structure so you can see the increased depth and detail that will be required to succeed at this level.
The final work is on the circulatory and pulmonary systems as they are the first systems you will study.
There is also some GCSE review topics to help you recall and reinforce some basic concepts (do not worry that this is titled AQA and we do Edexcel-the concepts are the same.
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
Videos
Ted talks
Anything by the 'King of Biology' Sir David Attenborough
The Crash Course series - has programmes on most topics
freesciencelessons.com 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