Science

Sixth Form

The Biology Department follows examination guidelines as laid out by AQA and this new course started in September 2008.  The government has asked the examining boards to redraft their specifications to:
·    continue the best features of the two previous AQA specifications, Biology A and Biology B
·    build on concepts and skills developed in the new GCSE Science specifications, presenting biology as exciting, relevant and challenging
·    present essential principles in contexts that students find interesting, stimulating the enthusiasm of students and teachers from the start.

As a result of this the new Biology course is divided into six units (three for the AS and three for the A2) of which two are now called ‘practical and investigative skills’ and are the equivalent of the old ‘coursework’.  Some of you may already have tackled the equivalent of these at GCSE so know what they are about.  The rest of the course is theoretical, although we will aim to support this material with regular practical sessions which, in the first year, will be approximately weekly.  The entire AS course has two main subjects of study and they are called ‘Biology and Disease’ and ‘The Variety of Living Organisms’.  

The ‘Biology and Disease’ topic involves discussing and describing biological systems, how they work and what happens when they go wrong.  The material covers a basic understanding of the body’s transport system, of the functioning of the gut and the breathing system.  You will investigate the principles behind the functioning of these areas as well as their anatomy, and then will look at actual mechanisms of transport and then the roles of enzymes.  All body systems can be affected by disease so, when the early material has been covered, you will move on to methods of infection, the effects of some of the micro-organisms that can harm us, how we can defend ourselves against them before they enter our bodies, and how we cope when they have.

The second unit (‘The Variety of Living Organisms’) builds upon the material laid down in the first and seeks to describe the astonishing variety of life on the planet and how we attempt to describe it and to classify it.  The topic moves from a close look at DNA all the way through to ecology, the study of distribution.  The completion of the practical and investigative skills (effectively the third unit) completes the AS qualification.

If you choose to carry on with your work in Biology through the Upper Sixth you will study two more theoretical units and there is one more practical one.  Unit 4 is called ‘Populations and Environment’ and Unit 5 is ‘Control in Cells and in Organisms’.  In Unit 4 we will be considering the fact that living organisms form structured communities within dynamic but essentially stable ecosystems through which energy is transferred and within which chemical elements are cycled.  To do this we will be extending our ecological work from the AS course and adding a little more detail as well as widening the topic considerably.  

In addition you will be reminded that humans are part of the ecological balance and their activities affect it, both directly and indirectly. Consideration of these effects underpins the content of this unit and by the end you should have an understanding that sustainability of resources depends on effective management of the conflict between human needs and conservation.  It is likely that you will carry out some sort of field work during this unit; the School is surrounded by woodland, fields and all sorts of suitable areas for detailed outdoor study.  The results you will collect will be analysed using simple statistics (and you will not need to be terribly good at mathematics to cope with that as the programs to do this are on the computer!).

The last theoretical unit is Unit 5: ‘Control in Cells and in Organisms’.  We are all aware that multi-cellular organisms are able to control the activities of different tissues and organs within their bodies. They do this by detecting stimuli (external or internal, or both) and by stimulating appropriate effectors (muscles and glands): plants use specific growth factors; animals use hormones, nerve impulses or a combination of both. By responding to these stimuli, animals increase their chances of survival by avoiding harmful environments and by maintaining optimal conditions for their metabolism.  This will make for some fascinating study as we will try to show you how it all works, using examples you have gained from the earlier parts of the course (and adding to these as well, of course).

On a smaller scale, cells are also able to control their metabolic activities by using their genetic codes. You will be shown that, although the cells within an organism carry the same genetic code, they use only part of it and we will try to show you how, in multi-cellular organisms, this control enables cells to have specialised functions, forming tissues and organs. We will follow this work with a look at our current exploitation of DNA and how knowledge of this chemical can be used in a wide variety of technological and medical applications.  Knowledge of these applications may well help you to understand how common ailments resulting from a breakdown of these control mechanisms occur so we will finish with a look at the use of DNA technology in the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. The final part is a second investigative skill (effectively the sixth unit) and that concludes the A2 course.