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This is a highly detailed and engaging lesson that covers the detail of the 2nd part of specification point 6.2.1 of the AQA A-level Biology specification which states that students should be able to describe the establishment of resting potential, the changes in membrane potential that lead to depolarisation and the importance of the refractory period. This topic is commonly assessed in the terminal exams so a lot of time has been taken to design this resource to include a wide range of activities that motivate the students whilst ensuring that the content is covered in the depth of detail that will allow them to have a real understanding. Interspersed within the activities are understanding checks and prior knowledge checks to enable the students to not only assess their progress against the current topic but also to challenge themselves on the links to earlier topics such as methods of movements across cell membranes and saltatory conduction. There are also a number of quiz competitions which are used to introduce key terms and values in a fun and memorable way and discussion points to encourage the students to consider why a particular process or mechanism occurs.
Over the course of the lesson, the students will learn and discover how the movement of ions across the membrane causes the membrane potential to change. They will see how the resting potential is maintained through the use of the sodium/potassium pump and potassium ion leakage. There is a real focus on depolarisation to allow students to understand how generator potentials can combine and if the resulting depolarisation then exceeds the threshold potential, a full depolarisation will occur. At this point in the lesson students will discover how the all or nothing response explains that action potentials have the same magnitude and that instead a stronger stimulus is linked to an increase in the frequency of the transmission. The rest of the lesson challenges the students to apply their knowledge to explain how repolarisation and hyperpolarisation result and to suggest advantages of the refractory period for nerve cells.
This lesson has been designed for students studying the AQA A-level Biology course and ties in nicely with other uploaded lessons on mammalian sensory receptors and the structures and functions of the neurones.
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AQA A-level Biology Topic 6: Organisms respond to changes in their internal and external environments
This bundle contains 19 fully-resourced and detailed lessons that have been designed to cover the content of topic 6 of the AQA A-level Biology specification which concerns the responses of organisms to stimuli. The wide range of activities included in each lesson will engage the students whilst the detailed content is covered and the understanding and prior knowledge checks allow them to assess their progress on the current topic as well as challenging them to make links to other related topics. Most of the tasks are differentiated to allow differing abilities to access the work and be challenged. The following sub-topics are covered in this bundle of lessons: * Survival and response in flowering plants * The role of sensory receptors as outlined by the Pacinian corpuscle * The human retina as a sensory receptor * The differences in rods and cones that enable different sensitivity to light, colour and visual acuity * The roles of the SAN, AVN, Bundle of His and Purkyne fibres in the conduction system of the heart * The control of heart rate * The structure of a myelinated motor neurone * The factors that affect the speed of conduction of an impulse * The generation and transmission of nerve impulses * The transmission at a cholinergic synapse and a neuromuscular junction * Summation * The contraction of skeletal muscles * The structure and properties of slow and fast skeletal muscle fibres * The principles of homeostasis including negative feedback systems * The control of blood glucose concentration by the controlled release of insulin and glucagon * The causes and control of diabetes type I and II * The gross structure of the kidney * The detailed structure of the nephron * The production of glomerular filtrate * The reabsorption of glucose and water in the PCT * Maintaining a gradient of sodium ions in the medulla by the loop of Henle * The role of the hypothalamus, posterior pituitary and ADH in osmoregulation This is one of the 8 topics which have to be covered over the length of the 2 year course and therefore it is expected that the teaching time for this bundle will be in excess of 2 months If you want to see the quality of the lessons before purchasing then the lessons on responses in flowering plants, saltatory conduction, the contraction of skeletal muscles and ultrafiltration are free resources to download
Topic 6.2: Nervous coordination (AQA A-level Biology)
All 4 lessons included in this bundle are fully-resourced and have been designed to cover the content as detailed in topic 6.2 (Nervous coordination) of the AQA A-Level Biology specification. The specification points that are covered within these lessons include: * The structure of a myelinated motor neurone * The establishment of a resting potential * Depolarisation * All or nothing principle * Factors affecting the speed of conductance The lessons have been written to include a wide range of activities and numerous understanding and prior knowledge checks so students can assess their progress against the current topic as well as be challenged to make links to other topics within this module and earlier modules If you would like to sample the quality of the lessons, download the saltatory conduction lesson which is free
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