NEW (2016) AQA AS-Level Biology – Osmosis

This lesson is designed for the NEW AQA AS-level Biology course, particularly the ‘Cells’ module.

For more lessons designed to meet specification points for the NEW AQA A-level Biology course please visit my shop: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/SWiftScience

A-Level lesson format: I teach in more of a lecture style compared to GCSE. In the majority of my A-level lessons the beginning portion of the lesson is mainly teacher-led, where students are expected to take notes onto a handout/in their books. This is then mixed in with student-led activities, as well as questions and exam prep.

You will find some of my slides have blank spaces for you to add more detail/descriptions/explanations. If you look at the ‘Notes’ section underneath each of these slides, you will find additional content which you can add in as you teach!

This lesson on Osmosis begins with a discussion to review diffusion and osmosis, students should think about what they remember from GCSE.

After defining osmosis and water potential, students will watch a short video and answer worksheet questions. Answers are available on the next slide for self-assessment.

To test the students’ knowledge, they will then practice identifying direction of movement from water potential of two plant cells. They can use mini whiteboards to pick a movement direction, or lack thereof!

To further the lesson on water potential, students will consider isotonic, hypertonic, and hypotonic solutions. They will then practice matching these terms to their definitions before completing a worksheet to demonstrate how these conditions affect red blood cells. Answers for self-assessment are on the next slide.

This information is synthesised by a quick discussion of osmosis in onion cells. Then, using their whiteboards to test their understanding of water potential, students will identify what is happening to cells in a series of pictures.

Students will then practise by working through a few exam-style questions and self-assessing to the answers provided in the slides.

As a plenary the students should write three sentences summarising what they have learned in this lesson.

All resources are included. Thanks for looking, if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section and any feedback would be appreciated :)