NEW AQA GCSE Trilogy (2016) Biology - Food production

This lesson is designed for the NEW AQA Trilogy Biology GCSE, particularly the ‘Ecology’ SoW.

For more lessons designed to meet specification points for the NEW AQA Trilogy specifications for Biology, Chemistry and Physics please see my shop: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/SWiftScience

Pupils are firstly asked to come up with a food chain for humans eating rice, then humans eating chickens and to consider the differences in energy efficiency between the two. This then leads onto the second slide which explains how shorter food chains mean more efficient food production.

The second task is for pupils to think > pair > share ideas about methods farmers could employ to ensure animals gain new biomass at an efficient rate. Once pupils have written their ideas down in their books the answers can be revealed on the PowerPoint, students can check their work against the answers and correct anything they need to. The methods listed on the PowerPoint have disadvantages, pupils should then have a short discussion in pairs of what these negatives are before they are revealed.

The next part of the lesson focuses on fish stocks, students are given some information and are asked to consider how we might sustainably manage fish stocks. Once students have some to discuss as groups and then as a class, pupils are given a set of questions they will need to answer whilst watching a video. Once this is complete students can self-assess their work.

The last part of the lesson focuses on biotechnology in food production. Students will be given some information sheet in their groups and should use this information to answer a set of questions, once pupils have completed these questions they can self or peer-assess their work using the mark scheme provided.

The very last task may be more suited to higher-ability classes. Pupils will be given a set of jumbled up sentences, students need to place the sentences in the correct order to describe the process of making mycoprotein, students can assess their work once complete.

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