I have been teaching science for over 30 years. although Biology is my specialism I have lots of experience of teaching Physics and Chemistry to GCSE. I am particularly interested in practical work and believe that all science teachers should be able to teach good practicals and give practical demos.
I have been teaching science for over 30 years. although Biology is my specialism I have lots of experience of teaching Physics and Chemistry to GCSE. I am particularly interested in practical work and believe that all science teachers should be able to teach good practicals and give practical demos.
This is a worksheet that assesses a student's understanding of what a "good" hypothesis is and their ability to analyse results. It could be used as a homework after a lesson or series of lessons on enzymes.
This whole-lesson resource provide you with an assessment of how well students can use a microscope and their knowledge of microscopes and cells. It works very well with KS3 students, but I have also used it as revision with KS4 students. There is an incentive to do well as each student will receive a certificate for completion of the practical work. This resource has materials for a whole one hour lesson.
This is a whole-lesson resource. Most diffusion practicals involve observation only - this resource asks students to measure and calculate. Further it has a set of results, obtained by real Year 7 students and a graph of their results. This is so all students have a standard set of results to compare their own results with and a standard set to interpret, so you can check their understanding. This resource also challenges students to use their knowledge of particles to help them analyse the results of comparing two different concentrations of acid.
Why choose this resource? It has easy to follow instructions that individual groups of students can use to extract DNA very successfully. It also has questions suitable for A level or Higher Biology students or a "good" class of Biology Triple GCSE students. Practical guide would be very useful for non-specialists.
Why choose this resource? It has a timeline that students can make notes on underneath headings. It uses literacy skills as students locate the correct information from the notes on a separate sheet. This is for GCSE Science students studying the history of atomic theory. It worked well with my Year 10 group.
This resource contains instructions on how to set up this tropism demo and a bit of background on how the plant makes it work. Suitable for GCSE Biology. The students were intrigued and it works extremely well.
Why choose this resource? It provides material for a whole lesson. It has instructions for a piece of practical work that the students will enjoy and helps them learn skills such as manipulation and dissection. The practical work is directly linked to the task of learning the parts of the flower. It has some clear diagrams that help explain pollination and some great pictures. It has differentiated tasks and a homework!
This resource is good value as it has technician lists, practical instructions, background material and worksheets for 5 lessons/activities on acids and alkalis. It is very suitable for new teachers or teachers teaching out of subject area who may like some new ideas/resources. It fits the new KS3 science section on the pH scale and neutralisation.
Why choose this resource? It has the most brilliant way for students to see stomata - you will never use a different method again! Apart from which there are ready made plan diagrams of a leaf for students to annotate and 3 different presentations of information for them to interpret depending on their ability. The power point explains meristems which has appeared in the AQA trilogy, ( never seen it at GCSE before!)
This was made for my Year 7 to help them review the new KS3 section on atoms, elements and compounds, prior to a test. Could be used as a homework activity.
This resource has loads of useful pictures and links to animations to liven up the AQA Science section on the heart which is about treatments for the heart and circulation problems (Biology, organisation sections 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.4.) There is a double page A4 information sheet and a set of questions with answer sheet available for peer or self marking. The power point is deliberately minimal as it then allows for differentiation as follows. It can be used in two ways. The teacher could use the information sheet as a guide to talk about the pictures on the ppt or the teacher could ask the class to make comments about the pictures using the information sheet as a prompt. There is a worksheet "which treatment would you give" where tests the students comprehension of this lesson by asking them to match treatments to symptoms. All images are from Wiki Commons.
Worksheet with information and questions about the pH scale. Has extension question. Requires some prior knowledge as well as comprehension of the worksheet. Ideal as a homework. Just modified it to make it more accessible after my Year 7s completed it for homework. Good to see if they are reading the information properly!
Why choose this resource? It is not just a power point it has activities that will make this topic more understandable. It has diagrams that you can get the students to annotate. It has an interesting "hands-on ", activity. It has questions that worked well to check student’s understanding with answers supplied. This is for teaching respiration to A level Biology students in particular SNAB students. I found the activities in the SNAB scheme around this topic, ( which are normally good), lacking for this unit. I was an author on the original SNAB scheme. I decided to write my own activities.
This is for the new BTEC Applied Science Course. There are questions here about how to use a colourimeter and an evaluation criteria sheet for some peer-evaluation when the students actually use the colourimeters. This was useful as it focussed them and will also help them evaluate their progress for this part of the assignment.
This is a compendium of practical work that works to show all aspects of photosynthesis. It includes some results data that students can analyse. There is nothing startlingly new, ( although there is one practical - fluorescence that I used for the first time this year!), but it is useful as it brings ideas together. It is ideal for non-specialists and teachers new to teaching biology and maybe even for some more experienced teachers looking for different angles. There are a few pages here, as it is a distilled version of over 30 years experience so there is a useful page index. I would appreciate some feedback please.
This is a worksheet for students to analyse data from Van Helmont’s investigation. It can be used as an introduction to photosynthesis or as an exercise in understanding the scientific method. The unique feature of this is information is given from the original writings and teachers have found this gives an extra stretch and challenge to the problems set. More questions than those given can be added. Could be useful for KS3 or KS4.
I have just added a link to a video which gives the background to his investigation and has notes on the video from the Science and Plants for Schools website.
A whole lesson resource. These practicals give a different take to the usual practical investigations and links to real experimental work going on in space! A starter grabs the attention with a stunning picture of a plant grown on the ISS. There are worksheets for the students and questions on the power point. Additional easier worksheet for some students. Suitable for KS4 Trilogy or Triple Biology.
This resource was written to try to get Year 7s to develop their practical skills. In particular to ask them to think about calculating averages, writing a hypothesis, identifying anomalous results and explaining about why increasing rotor width might help the paper helicopter spend more time in the air. This was given to the Year 7s after we had already done some practical work dropping paper helicopters and timing how long they took to reach the floor. We are fortunate in that we have a suitable balcony to drop them from at our College.
