This lesson describes the meaning of an isotope and explains how to calculate the relative atomic mass using the relative masses and abundance of its isotopes. The PowerPoint and accompanying resources are part of the final lesson in a series of 3 lessons have been designed to cover the detail of points 1.1.4, 1.1.5 & 1.1.6 of the AQA GCSE Chemistry & Combined Science specifications. The early topic 1 lessons covered the meaning of the atomic and mass number and the calculation of the number of subatomic particles, and this lesson begins by challenging the recall of this key information. Moving forwards, a quick quiz competition is used to introduce the term “isotope” and then the students have to calculate the number of subatomic particles in K-39, K-40 and K-41 before using their answers to complete a definition about these types of substances. Time is taken to explain how isotopes are represented in standard annotation and the importance of the mass number is emphasised. A series of application questions are used to challenge them to apply their understanding and knowledge and mark schemes are embedded into the PowerPoint to allow the students to self-mark. The remainder of the lesson explains how the existence of isotopes results in some elements having relative atomic masses that are not whole numbers and then explains how these masses can be calculated. Once an example is demonstrated, the students are again given the chance to apply their understanding to a series of questions, and this exam question worksheet has been differentiated two ways

This lesson describes the process of gas exchange between air in the alveoli and the blood. The PowerPoint and accompanying worksheet have been designed to cover point 9.1 (d) of the CIE A-level Biology specification Gas exchange at the alveoli is a topic that was covered at GCSE so this lesson has been written to challenge the recall of that knowledge and to build on it. The main focus of the lesson is the type of epithelium found lining the alveoli and students will discover that a single layer of flattened cells known as simple, squamous epithelium acts to reduce the diffusion distance. The following features of the alveolar epithelium are also covered: Surface area Moist lining Production of surfactant The maintenance of a steep concentration gradient As a constant ventilation supply is critical for the maintenance of the steep concentration gradient, the final part of the lesson considers the mechanism of ventilation

This lesson describes the structure and function of synapses in nerve impulse transmission and focuses on acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter. The PowerPoint and accompanying resources have been designed to cover point 8.6 (i) of the Edexcel International A-level Biology specification, using a cholinergic synapse as the main example The lesson begins by using a version of the WALL from “Only Connect” which asks the students to group 12 words into three groups of 4. Not only will this challenge their prior knowledge from topics earlier in this topic but it will also lead to the discovery of four of the structures that are found in a synapse. Moving forwards, students are introduced to acetylcholine as the neurotransmitter involved at cholinergic synapses and they will start to add labels to the structures found in the pre-synaptic bulb. Time is taken to focus on certain structures such as the voltage gated channels as these types of channel were met previously when looking at the depolarisation of a neurone. There is plenty of challenge and discovery as students are pushed to explain why organelles like mitochondria would be found in large numbers in the bulb. With this process being a cascade of events, a bullet point format is used to ensure that the key content is taken in by the students and again key points like exocytosis and the action of acetylcholinesterase are discussed further. Understanding checks and prior knowledge checks are included throughout the lesson so that students can not only assess their progress against the current topic but also see whether they can make links to earlier topics.

This lesson describes how tissue fluid is formed and reabsorbed in order to emphasise its importance as the link between the blood and cells. The PowerPoint and accompanying resources have been designed to cover point (h) in topic 3 of AS unit 2 of the WJEC A-level Biology specification and explains how a combination of the effects of hydrostatic pressure and oncotic pressure results in the formation of tissue fluid in animals. The lesson begins with an introduction to the arteriole and venule end of a capillary as these will need to be considered as separate entities when describing the formation of tissue fluid. A quick quiz competition introduces a value for the hydrostatic pressure at the arteriole end and students are challenged to first predict some parts of the blood will move out of the capillary as a result of the push from the hydrostatic pressure and this allows oncotic pressure to be initially explored. The main part of the lesson uses a step by step guide to describe how the net movement is outwards at the arteriole end before students will use this guidance to describe what happens at the venule end. In the concluding part of the lesson, students will come to recognise oedema as a condition where tissue fluid accumulates and they again are challenged to explain how this occurs before they finally learn how the fluid is returned to the circulatory system as lymph

This lesson describes how the cells of the proximal tubule in the nephron of the kidney are adapted for reabsorption. The PowerPoint and accompanying resource which is filled with tasks have been designed to cover specification point [e] in topic 7 of A2 unit 3 of the WJEC A-level Biology specification and builds on the knowledge gained in the previous lessons on the structure of the nephron and the functions of the mammalian kidney. The lesson begins by challenging the students to recall the substances that are found in the glomerular filtrate so that each of them can be considered over the course of the rest of the lesson. Moving forwards, the first of the numerous discussion points which are included in the lesson is used to get students to predict the component of the filtrate which won’t be found in the urine when they are presented with pie charts from each of these situations. Upon learning that glucose is 100% reabsorbed, along with most of the ions and some of the water, the rest of the lesson focuses on describing the relationship between the structure of the proximal tubule and the function of selective reabsorption. Again, this section begins by encouraging the students to discuss and to predict which structures they would expect to find in a section of the kidney if the function is to reabsorb. They are given the chance to see the structure (as shown in the cover image) before each feature is broken down to explain its importance. Time is taken to look at the role of the cotransporter proteins to explain how this allows glucose, along with sodium ions, to be reabsorbed from the lumen of the PCT into the epithelial cells. The final part of the lesson focuses on urea and how the concentration of this substance increases along the tubule as a result of the reabsorption of some of the water.

This lesson has been designed to cover the content set out in specification point 2.5 (g) of the WJEC GCSE Biology specification which states that students should understand that hormones are chemical messengers which control many body functions. A wide range of activities have been written into the lesson with the aim of engaging and motivating the students whilst ensuring that the content is covered in detail. These activities include a number of quiz competitions which will challenge the students to identify an endocrine organ when presented with three organs as well as introducing them to the names of some of the hormones released by the pituitary gland. The following content is covered in this lesson: The location of the pituitary, adrenal and thyroid glands in the human body The location of the pancreas, ovaries and testes in the human body The hormones which are secreted by the endocrine glands The effects of the hormones on their target organs This lesson has been written for GCSE-aged students who are studying on the WJEC Biology course but it is suitable for younger students who are looking at this as one of the different organ systems

This fully-resourced lesson looks at the detailed structure of a muscle fibre, and focuses on the proteins, bands and zones that are found in the myofibril. The engaging PowerPoint and acccompanying resource have been designed to cover the third part of point E2 in UNIT 2 of the Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in Sport and Exercise Science specification. The lesson begins with an imaginary question from the quiz show POINTLESS, where students have to recognise a range of fields of study. This will reveal myology as the study of muscles so that key terms like myofibril and myosin can be introduced. Moving forwards, students will be shown the striated appearance of this muscle so they can recognise that some areas appear dark where both myofilaments are found and others as light as they only contain actin or myosin. A quiz competition is used to introduce the A band, I band and H zone and students then have to use the information given to label a diagram of the myofibril. The final task challenges the students to use their knowledge of the sliding filament theory to recognise which of these bands or zones narrow or stay the same length when muscle is contracted.

This lesson describes and explains how the contraction of the heart chambers during atrial and ventricular systole and the relaxation during diastole causes blood to flow through the heart. The engaging PowerPoint and accompanying resource have been designed to cover the 4th point of SECTION A9 of the CIE International A-level PE specification which states that students need to be able to describe the different stages of the cardiac cycle. The students will have already encountered aspects of the cardiovascular system earlier in this section and this lesson aims to build on that knowledge. Students will be introduced to the sequence of events known as the cardiac cycle and will learn that the cycle can be split into three parts, which are atrial systole, ventricular systole and diastole. There is a particular focus on the role of the AV and semi-lunar valves in the control of blood flow and students are challenged to explain how pressure changes cause these valves to open or close. The final task of the lesson involves a quiz round called “RECYCLE THIS?” where the teams have to use their knowledge of the cardiac cycle and the function and anatomy of the heart and blood vessels from a previous lesson to spot any errors in the description of blood flow through the heart

This is a fully-resourced lesson which describes the relationship between cardiac output, stroke volume and heart rate and explains how they differ between rest and during exercise. The PowerPoint and accompanying resources have been designed to cover the 2nd part of point 1.1.2 of the AQA A-level PE specification. The lesson begins by challenging the students to recognise that the left ventricle has the most muscular wall of all of the heart chambers. This allows the stroke volume to be introduced as the volume of blood ejected from the left ventricle each heart beat and then a quiz competition is used to introduce normative values for the stroke volume and the heart rate. Moving forwards, students will learn that the cardiac output is the product of the stroke volume and the heart rate. At this point in the lesson, time is taken to challenge the students to consider how these three factors would be affected by a single physical activity. Venous return and the regulation of heart rate are briefly introduced to explain the increase in stroke volume and heart rate but these are covered in greater detail in later lessons in this topic. The main part of the lesson looks at the adaptation of the heart to aerobic training in the form of cardiac hypertrophy and then the students are challenged to work out how this would affect the stroke volume, the cardiac output and the resting heart rate. A number of tasks are used to get the students to explain why the resting heart rate decreases and to calculate the changes in cardiac output. One of the two tasks has been differentiated and this allows students of differing abilities to access the work

This lesson describes and explains how the contraction of the heart chambers during atrial and ventricular systole and the relaxation during diastole causes blood to flow through the heart. The engaging PowerPoint and accompanying resource have been designed to cover the 2nd point of the “Cardiovascular system at rest” topic in 1.1.b of the OCR A-level PE specification The students will have already encountered aspects of the cardiovascular system earlier in this section and this lesson aims to build on that knowledge. Students will be introduced to the sequence of events known as the cardiac cycle and will learn that the cycle can be split into three parts, which are atrial systole, ventricular systole and diastole. There is a particular focus on the role of the AV and semi-lunar valves in the control of blood flow and students are challenged to explain how pressure changes cause these valves to open or close. The final task of the lesson involves a quiz round called “RECYCLE THIS?” where the teams have to use their knowledge of the cardiac cycle and the structures of the heart and blood vessels to spot any errors in the description of blood flow through the heart

This concise lesson presentation and accompanying worksheet have been designed to cover the content of point 2.5 (h) of the WJEC GCSE Biology specification which states that students should understand the need to keep blood glucose levels within a constant range. Homeostasis is a running theme throughout the 2.5 topic so this lesson builds on knowledge from earlier topics to ensure that there is a deep understanding. The lesson begins by introducing glucose and a quiz competition will lead to the range 4 - 7, so that students can recognise that this is the set range within which this molecule’s concentration must be kept. Time is taken to look at some of the health problems that are associated with an increase in concentration above this upper limit and the general Biological knowledge of the students is tested with some questions. Moving forwards, the main task of the lesson involves a step by step guide through the stages in the response to a high blood glucose concentration and shows the students how the release of insulin leads to the uptake of glucose from the blood and a conversion to glycogen by the liver and muscle cells. The summary task at the end challenges the students to bring all of the information together to write a detailed description of this response and this activity is differentiated to aid those students who need extra assistance. This lesson has been designed for students studying the WJEC GCSE Biology course but could be used with A-level students who are beginning this topic and need to recall the key details.

This lesson describes and explains how the contraction of the heart chambers during atrial and ventricular systole and the relaxation during diastole causes blood to flow through the heart. The engaging PowerPoint and accompanying resource have been designed to cover the first part of point B3 of UNIT 2 of the Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in Sport and Exercise Science specification. The students will have already encountered aspects of the cardiac cycle in unit 1 and this lesson aims to build on that knowledge. Students will be reminded that the sequence of events known as the cardiac cycle can be split into three parts, which are atrial systole, ventricular systole and diastole. There is a particular focus on the role of the AV and semi-lunar valves in the control of blood flow and students are challenged to explain how pressure changes cause these valves to open or close. The final task of the lesson involves a quiz round called “RECYCLE THIS?” where the teams have to use their knowledge of the cardiac cycle and the function and anatomy of the heart and blood vessels from a previous lesson to spot any errors in the description of blood flow through the heart This lesson has been specifically designed to tie in with the next lesson outlined in the specification on the neural control of the cardiac cycle

This detailed lesson describes how the anatomy and location of the arteries, arterioles, capillaries, venules and veins enables them to perform their functions. The engaging PowerPoint and accompanying resource have both been designed to cover the 2nd part of point B1 in UNIT 2 of the Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in Sport and Exercise Science specification. The aorta, vena cava, pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein were covered in the previous lesson on the function and anatomy of the heart so this lesson focuses on the location and anatomy of the 5 different types of blood vessels. Students will have met arteries, veins and capillaries at GCSE so this lesson builds on that knowledge whilst introducing the arterioles and venules. Time is taken to look at the structure of the artery and specifically at how the narrow lumen and thick wall allows this blood vessel to maintain the high pressure of blood and also withstand it. The importance of the arterioles for decreasing this pressure is explained and then students will discuss how the location of capillaries next to tissues allows for a fast rate of diffusion. The rest of the lesson describes how venules connect capillaries to a vein and the structure of this final blood vessel is compared against arteries, where students have to explain why it has a wider lumen with valves and a thinner wall. A series of quiz rounds are used to maintain engagement whilst introducing key terms and values.

This fully-resourced lesson describes the specific stages of the glycolytic energy system and explains its role in ATP production for exercise. Both the PowerPoint and accompanying resources have been designed to cover the content of the “Energy systems and ATP resynthesis” section of the OCR A-level PE specification so that students know the type of reaction, fuel used, site of the reaction and ATP yield. The lesson begins by challenging the students to explain which out of stored ATP, phosphocreatine and glycogen in a muscle would be depleted after 10 seconds of intense exercise. This introduces glycogen as the starting substance in the glycolytic system and students will use their prior knowledge to recognise that the 1st step in this system involves the breakdown of glycogen to glucose. The main part of the lesson focuses on glycolysis and the key details of this step are discussed and explained, such as the net yield of ATP. Moving forwards, the students will learn how the product of glycolysis, pyruvate, is converted to lactate but does not result in the formation of any more ATP and this small yield of just 2 ATP means that this system is quickly fatigued. The lesson finishes by covering the duration of exercise that can be supported by the glycolytic system as the dominant energy provider. This lesson has been specifically written to tie in with the next lesson on the aerobic system as well as making links to a previous lesson on the ATP-PC system.

This lesson explains how to use the endings -ide and -ate when naming compounds. The lesson PowerPoint and accomapnying worksheet have been designed to cover point 1.25 of the Edexcel GCSE Chemistry specification and also covers that point in the Chemistry section of the Combined Science course The lesson begins with some simple multiple choice questions to check that students can spot the chemical symbol and definition of an element, but more importantly pick out the formula for a compound. Time is taken to go through the explanation of why substances are elements or compounds and specific examples given. A quick understanding check, in the form of a competition called “To COM or NOT TO COM”,is used to check that students can identify elements or compounds from a name or given formula. The remainder of the lesson focuses on naming compounds. Students are challenged to spot a pattern when presented with the names of two compounds, which contain 2 elements only. For both compounds that contain 2 elements or 3 or more, the rules to naming are introduced before examples are shown so that students can visualise how to construct their answer. They are then given an opportunity to apply this to a number of questions in the set tasks. The last part of the lesson moves this forward by looking at how these same rules can be applied when the chemical formula of a compound is given and this is related to another topic as they are challenged to write a word equation containing a range of compounds when presented with the symbol equation. Progress checks are written into the lesson at regular intervals so that students can constantly assess their understanding. Although this is written for Edexcel GCSE students, it is perfectly suitable for use with younger students who are learning about elements, compounds and mixtures and the teacher wants to push them onwards

This lesson describes how to calculate the relative formula mass from simple chemical formulae and for those that include brackets. The PowerPoint and the accompanying worksheet have been designed to cover point 1.43 of the Edexcel GCSE Chemistry specification and also covers that point in the Chemistry section of the Combined Science course. The lesson contains a wide range of tasks, understanding checks and quick quiz competitions to guide students through calculating the relative formula mass for substances with a range of chemical formulae. The relative formula mass is required in a lot of calculations, such as those that involve moles, so it is an important skill to get right. Worked examples are used throughout the lesson to visualise the metho for the students. Initially, students will learn how to calculate the mass from simple formulae before helpful hints are provided for harder formulae such as those that contain a bracket. Students are given the chance to apply their knowledge by proving that mass is conserved in a reaction and this prepares them for an upcoming lesson. This lesson has been written for GCSE students but could be used with higher ability KS3 students in lessons that are looking to push knowledge forward

This lesson describes the differing properties of metals and non-metals and also relates this to their position in the Periodic Table. The lesson PowerPoint has been designed to cover points 1.18, 1.40 & 1.42 of the Edexcel GCSE Chemistry specification and this also covers those same points on the Combined Science course. The lesson contains a range of tasks including guided discussion points and quick quiz competitions which will engage and motivate the students whilst introducing key properties such as malleability and the ability to conduct electricity. Time is also taken to consider where the metallic and non-metallic elements are found in the Periodic Table and a series of progress checks will challenge the students to link together properties with position.

This lesson explains the properties of the fullerenes and focuses on graphene in terms of its structure and bonding. The PowerPoint and the accompanying resources have been designed to cover point 1.38 of the Edexcel GCSE Chemistry specification and also covers that same point on the Combined Science course. The lesson begins by recalling the definition of an allotrope. The students are then introduced to graphene and will begin to understand how this covalent structure is related to graphite and will know the shared properties of these two materials. Time is taken to ensure that students can explain why graphene is able to conduct electricity. Moving forwards, students will meet the family of allotropes known as the fullerenes and will learn some important details about a few of these including C60

This lesson describes how the structure of arteries, arterioles, capillaries, venules and veins in the mammalian circulatory system relate to their functions. The PowerPoint and accompanying resources are part of the second lesson in a series of 2 lessons which have been designed to cover specification point (b) of topic 3 in AS unit 2 of the WJEC A-level Biology A specification. The first lesson in this series covers the structure and function of the human heart and its associated blood vessels This lesson has been written to build on any prior knowledge from GCSE or earlier in this topic to enable students to fully understand why a particular type of blood vessel has particular features. Students will be able to make the connection between the narrow lumen and elastic tissue in the walls of arteries and the need to maintain the high pressure of the blood. A quick version of the GUESS WHO game is used to introduce smooth muscle and collagen in the tunica media and externa and again the reason for their presence is explored and explained. Moving forwards, it is quite likely that some students will not be aware of the transition vessels that are the arterioles. This section begins with an understanding of the need for these vessels because the structural and functional differences between arteries and capillaries is too significant. The action of the smooth muscle in the walls of these vessels is discussed and students will be challenged to describe a number of situations that would require blood to be redistributed. The middle part of the lesson looks at the role of the capillaries in exchange and links are made to diffusion to ensure that students can explain how the red blood cells pressing against the endothelium results in a short diffusion distance. The remainder of the lesson considers the structure of the veins and students are challenged to explain how the differences to those observed in arteries is due to the lower blood pressure found in these vessels.

This lesson introduces the alkanes as a group of hydrocarbons and explains how to draw their displayed formula and work out the general formula. The PowerPoint is part of the second lesson in a series of 2 which have been designed to cover point 7.1.1 of the AQA GCSE Chemistry & Combined Science specifications. The students were introduced to crude oil and hydrocarbons in the previous lesson so this one begins by introducing the fact that most of the hydrocarbons in crude oil are alkanes. The students are challenged to recall that covalent bonds will hold hydrogen and carbon together and they will learn that every carbon atom has four covalent bonds. This fact is used in the step by step guide as they are shown how to draw the displayed formula for methane. Moving forwards, a quick competition is used to introduce the next three members of the group in ethane, propane and butane, and the students have to apply their understanding by drawing the formula to find the molecular formula. The general formula for the alkanes is determined and then a series of exam questions will challenge them to apply this to work out numbers of carbon or hydrogen atoms or to write a formula.