NEW AQA GCSE (2016) Biology Specification - Bacterial & Viral Diseases

This is a resource for the new GCSE AQA Specification, it meets specification points from the ‘Infection & Response’ unit.

This resource contains two shorter lessons or one full lesson on bacterial & viral diseases.

Bacterial disease: This lesson begins with pupils considering why death rates due to infectious diseases are now 30% lower than they were in the early 20th century.

You will then introduce the three bacterial diseases the students will need to learn about - salmonella, gonorrhoea and bacterial diseases in plants - and ask students to discuss what they already know about these diseases.

Pupils will then copy the table from the PowerPoint into their books and they can either read information in pairs or use the information placed around the room to complete the table. You could check the students have recorded all relevant information by self-assessing the work using red pens.

For the mid-lesson plenary some statements about bacterial diseases will be read out and pupils can use thumbs up/thumbs down or RAG cards to show whether they think the statement is true or false. This will give you a chance to address any misconceptions.

The next activity can be a silent task, pupils complete questions in their books and when finished they should peer-assess using their red pen.

The plenary is an exit card (piece of paper) where pupils should write down a topic they feel secure with and an area which they do not feel as secure with. This can be addressed at the beginning of the next lesson.

Viral diseases: The lessons starts with a recap on the viral diseases the students would have learnt about a beginning of the unit when covering communicable and non-communicable diseases (see my Health & Wellness lesson). Students can discuss and then a mind map can be brought together on the white board.

Pupils then draw a table into their books and use the information around the room to complete the table. This is then followed by a mid-lesson progress check, pupils will answer questions in silence in their books which are then self-assessed using red pen.

You can then conduct a game of key word bingo with your students. This works by pupils choosing 6 of the key words from the board and you can randomly read definitions of these key words, if pupils have they key word they should cross the word out. Once all 6 of their key words are crossed out they can call bingo!

The plenary is a 3-2-1 recap of the lesson, pupils should write three facts they have learnt, two key words and a question to test their peers knowledge of viral diseases. If there is time at the end of the lesson

All of the resources are found within the PowerPoint :)