Maintaining water and nitrogen balance in the body (AQA GCSE Biology)

This fully-resourced lesson has been designed to cover the content of specification point 5.3.3 (Maintaining water and nitrogen balance in the body) as found in topic 5 of the AQA GCSE Biology specification. This resource contains an engaging and detailed PowerPoint (59 slides) and accompanying worksheets, which have been differentiated so that students of different abilities can access the work. The detail of the content and this resource means that it is likely to take more than 1 lesson to go through the tasks.

The resource is filled with a wide range of activities, each of which has been designed to engage and motivate the students whilst ensuring that the key Biological content is covered in good detail. Understanding checks are included throughout so that the students can assess their grasp of the content. In addition, prior knowledge checks make links to content from earlier topics such as homeostasis, osmosis and active transport.

The following content is covered in this lesson:

• The importance of controlled water levels for cellular function
• The ways that water is lost and removed from the body
• The formation of urea by deamination
• Filtration of the blood by the kidney
• Selective reabsorption of useful molecules from the kidney to the blood
• The effect of ADH on the permeability of the tubules of the kidney
• Dialysis and transplant as possible treatment options for kidney failure

As stated at the top, this lesson has been designed for GCSE-aged students who are studying the AQA GCSE Biology course, but it can be used with A-level students who need to go back over the key points before looking at the function of the nephron in more detail