AQA A-level Biology Topic 6: Organisms respond to changes in their internal and external environments

This bundle contains 20 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. Many 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 protective effect of a simple reflex
• 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