A Science teacher by trade, I've also been known to be found teaching Maths and PE! However, strange as it may seem, my real love is designing resources that can be used by other teachers to maximise the experience of the students. I am constantly thinking of new ways to engage a student with a topic and try to implement that in the design of the lessons.
A Science teacher by trade, I've also been known to be found teaching Maths and PE! However, strange as it may seem, my real love is designing resources that can be used by other teachers to maximise the experience of the students. I am constantly thinking of new ways to engage a student with a topic and try to implement that in the design of the lessons.
This lesson describes the role of auxins in elongation growth, specifically in the plant responses of phototropism and gravitropism. The PowerPoint and accompanying resources have been designed to cover point 15.2 (2) of the CIE A-level biology specification.
The lesson begins with a prior knowledge check, where the students have to identify key terms encountered across topics 1 - 14, and use their 1st letters to form the term, tropism. Students are reminded of the meaning of a tropism, and how these directional growth responses are determined by the direction of the external stimuli. They should have met auxins at this previous level, but will now be introduced to IAA, and will complete several tasks which check that they understand the key features of these chemicals, such as their location of production and method by which they move through the shoots and roots. The students are guided through the movement of IAA to the shaded side in a shoot during phototropism, and will learn how this uneven distribution leads to uneven growth. An exam-style question presents them with two further scenarios, where the tip of the shoot has been cut off or is covered, and the students need to describe and explain what will happen to the appearance of the shoot after a week. Moving forwards, the students will learn how the pumping of hydrogen ions acidifies the cell wall and the subsequent activation of expansin proteins are involved in the cell elongation.
The remainder of the lesson discusses the response to gravity and explains how shoots and roots respond differently.
The lesson is full of understanding and prior knowledge checks and all answers are embedded into the PowerPoint.
This lesson explains how labelled DNA probes in microarrays can be used to identify active genes. The PowerPoint and accompanying resources have been designed to cover the content of point 8.20 of the Edexcel International A-level biology specification.
The lesson begins by introducing the BRCA genes, and the students will learn how faulty alleles of these two genes can increase an individual’s risk of developing breast cancer. Therefore, there is a need to be able to locate specific alleles like these, and this function is performed by DNA probes. The students are challenged to use the function of the probes to predict their structure and will understand that they are short lengths of single stranded DNA that have a base sequence complementary to the base sequence of part of the target allele. A quick quiz round is used to introduce hybridisation as a key term, to ensure that students recognise that the probe will bind if the complementary base sequence is encountered. Moving forwards, a DNA microarray is introduced to show that it’s possible to screen for multiple genes.
The remainder of the lesson considers how the DNA probes are used to screen for heritable conditions and drug responses, and real-life examples are used to increase relevance.
This lesson describes the location and functions of the cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum, medulla oblongata and hypothalamus. The engaging PowerPoint and accompanying resources have been designed to cover point 8.8 of the Pearson Edexcel A-level biology A (SNAB) specification and also includes descriptions of the link between the hypothalamus and the anterior and posterior lobes of the pituitary gland.
The lesson begins with a multiple-choice question, where the students will learn that cerebrum is the Latin word for brain. This brain structure is described as two hemispheres and students will be introduced to the localisation of function of the 4 lobes of the cerebral cortex. It moves onto the cerebellum, focusing on its role of perfecting and coordinating movement, and explains how this is achieved through neural connections with the cerebrum. The control of heart rate by the medulla oblongata is described before the lesson concludes with an exploration of the connections between the hypothalamus and the two lobes of the pituitary gland, specifically in the mechanisms of osmoregulation and thermoregulation.
This is an extensive lesson covering a lot of detail, so as shown in the cover image, the lesson plan contains 5 quiz rounds as part of a competition which will help to maintain engagement whilst checking on their recall and understanding of content. There are also multiple understanding and prior knowledge checks which allow the students to assess their progress against the current topic and to make links to previously covered content. All answers to these knowledge checks are embedded into the PowerPoint.
It is likely that this lesson will take between 2 - 3 hours of teaching time, but sections can be edited and removed if the teacher doesn’t want to look at a particular structure in that detail at this stage of study.
