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Biology A Level

Home New Starters New Starters Course Tasks and Activities Biology A Level

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New Starters Guide image Download the New Starters Guide
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Hello and welcome to the Biology Department here at Reigate College.

My name is Alys Dreux and I’m the course leader for Biology A Level. Biology is a really popular A Level choice and I’m really pleased you’re planning on taking it as one of your A Level options.

To help prepare you for the course and to get you excited about studying it at A Level, I’d like you to complete the tasks and activities below (that are being released in three phases). Many of the initial tasks are exploratory in nature, so give you the opportunity to delve more deeply into a specific topic, if its an area of of particular interest to you.

You’re not required to formally submit your findings, but you’ll have the chance to share what you’ve learnt with teachers and fellow Biologists when you start at the College in September.

The tasks will be released here, in three phases (see table below)  and should be completed by Choices Day on 1 September 2021.  Please throw yourself into them and above all enjoy them!

Please note, some Course Leaders (for example for Music) may release their tasks earlier, as they may form part of the College’s audition process.  If this applies to you, you’ll be notified separately.

New Starters Course Tasks and Activities

Release date To be completed by
Explore your Subject1 June1 July
Get Going1 July1 Aug
Aim High1 Aug1 Sep

Explore your Subject

As an A Level Biologist,  you’ll study a variety of biological content linked to the following themes:  

  • Cell & Molecular Biology,
  • Anatomy & Physiology and
  • Ecology & Conservation.

To help start preparing  you for the course in September, we’d like you to have a go at the following activities by 1 June.

1. Take a look at the Wildlife Trust’s website

Even when you’re stuck at home,  you can still connect with nature via the Wildlife Trust.

Take a look at:

www.wildlifetrusts.org

2. Explore your back garden or local area

See which species you can identify:

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/identify-wildlife/

 3. Investigate further afield

Take a look at: www.wildlifetrusts.org/webcams

4. Help track the effects of weather and climate change in your area

Visit:  www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/things-to-do/natures-calendar/

5. Find out about the conservation work of  Jersey and London Zoos – and the steps they’re taking to help save endangered animals

See:

www.durrell.org/wildlife/

www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/exhibits

Then follow their animals on their YouTube channel webcams:

www.youtube.com/channel/UC0S3BrrgMjBDGN4BY4xjBJA

www.youtube.com/user/ZSLvideo/featured

6. Visit an online museum

www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/medicine

Or even take part in a virtual tour

https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/natural-history-museum

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour

https://hsm.ox.ac.uk/past-exhibitions-and-displays

7. Investigate and open your mind to new areas of Biology, by watching a science documentary

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/categories/science-and-nature/featured

Here are some suggestions:

  • ‘Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of the Cell’
  • ‘Secrets of Skin’
  • ‘Between Life and Death’
  • ‘Weird Nature’
  • Anything with David Attenborough and animals!

8. Take time to catch up on new advances in Biology

Look out for biological stories in the science section of  a broadsheet newspaper, science journal or via a respected website.

Here are some suggestions:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

www.sciencenewsforstudents.org

www.sciencenews.org

www.sciencedaily.com/news/top/science/

9. Try listening to podcasts

Good examples include:

https://thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-features/158-biologist/features/1803-12-of-the-best-podcasts-for-biologists

www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/category/scienceandnature-scienceandtechnology

www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=the-best-nature-science-and-technology-podcasts

10. Take time to watch a TED Talk

There are topics on things like:

  • Solving the antibiotic resistance crisis,
  • How gut microbes can affect your health,
  • How nanoparticles could change the way we treat cancer and
  • How to 3D print human tissue

See: www.ted.com/talks?sort=newest&topics%5B%5D=biology

11. Get to grips with the key Biology A Level by accessing tutorials and quizzes in Khan Academy

www.khanacademy.org/science/biology#intro-to-biology

Good sections to start with include:  Macromolecules, Structure of a Cell, Membranes, DNA and Human Biology.

Get Going

Your Get Going task for Biology A Level is to complete five GCSE Review packs. These cover important areas that are needed for the first parts of the Biology A Level course. 

The review packs have been prepared using BBC GCSE Bitesize so please use the links provided at the start of the packs to help you.

In a lot of cases you will see two links for each section based on the exam board (AQA and Edexcel). Don’t worry if you’ve studied a different exam board (i.e. OCR), the biology information will still be recognisable. 

You must use all links to access all the information you need to complete the pack. You will also need to work through the whole GCSE Bitesize link in order to get all the information you need to provide the best possible answers you can. You can also use your GCSE textbook, class notes and GCSE revision guide to add in more relevant Biology that you have covered in school. 

In some cases, there may be new Biology that you haven’t come across before.  If this is the case, please still have a go! All the content is of GCSE standard and it will all be useful in helping you extend your knowledge into the A Level. Every bit of theory within the review packs will be used once you start the A Level course.

How to complete them: There are two main possible ways to complete the packs:

1. Print out the packs and complete by hand (this is the preferred option), or

2. If you don’t have access to a printer then please save the packs somewhere safely and write out the questions and answers on file paper.

Packs below:

  1. The Heart & Cardiovascular System
  2. Cardiovascular Disease
  3. DNA & Protein Synthesis
  4. Enzymes
  5. Transport in Cells & Gas Exchange

It is important you have a copy of your completed packs at the start of the A Level as they will help you get started with the A Level content. 

Try your hardest and do your best!

Aim High

Welcome back to Biology. For this final series of tasks, I’d like you to complete a mini research project.

Research into Cardiovascular Disease (CVD)

The aim of the project is:

1. To research:

  • types of CVD
  • key risk factors
  • the benefits and risks of specific drug treatments for CVD

2. to practise and develop scientific research and referencing skills needed for A Level

Instructions:

To complete this task you will need to do the following:

  1. Use the Internet to carry out research on the specified areas of cardiovascular disease (please make sure you’re choosing reputable websites for this).
  2. Type or write your research onto an A4 sheet. Do not simply copy or cut and paste information, but present the information in your own words.
  3. Reference the websites and specific pages that you use for each piece of information you gather (see more details below).
  4. Bring your completed work with you to your first Biology lesson.

Referencing:

You need to reference every website page you use information from so the information can be found again at a later date or by someone else. Please do this in the following way:

  1. Once you have written some text, you must insert a number after it, for example [1].
  2. At the end of the document insert [1] and next to it paste the link to the webpage where you found the information. (See the end of the document for more information.)
  3. If your next bit of written text came from another source, put [2] after it. Then insert [2] at the end of the document and paste the new link next to it.
  4. If you use text from the same webpage but in a later part of the document, you can use the original number again, i.e. [1], but you do not need to add anything new to the reference list at the end.
  5. The reference list at the end of the document must be in numerical order.

Resources:

There are numerous excellent websites that can be accessed to help you with this task. A couple are listed below to start you off:

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/conditions (The British Heart Foundation – BHF)

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cardiovascular-disease/ (The NHS)

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cardiovascular-diseases-(cvds) (The World Health Organisation – WHO)

Search through these websites, and others, to access different pages and find the information that you need.

DO NOT reference Wikipedia. If you do read something on a Wikipedia page, access the link that the information has been gathered from. To do this, click on the hyperlinked number next to the text, this will take you to the reference. Then click on the reference to go to the original/primary document or website to use and reference that.

TASK 1: With the above in mind, please research and write a definition for cardiovascular disease, to answer the question:

  • What is Cardiovascular Disease?

TASK 2: We’d now like you to research the main types of Cardiovascular Disease, and then write a few sentences to describe each of the following:

  • Coronary heart disease (CHD), also known as ischaemic heart disease or coronary artery disease, and its symptoms (angina, heart attack and heart failure)
  • Stroke
  • Aneurysm
  • Peripheral vascular disease
  • Thrombosis and deep vein thrombosis (DVT)

TASK 3: There are many risk factors for CVD. Please research and find as many as you can:

  • Try to be as specific as possible, for example, don’t just mention ‘diet’, but the specific components of an individual’s diet, i.e. saturated fat.
  • Be specific about whether the factor has to be high or low to be a risk factor, for example, not just ‘blood pressure’, but ‘high blood pressure’. 
  • Describe how the risk factor contributes to the person’s risk, for example, high blood pressure can damage the lining of arteries.
  • Categorise each risk factor into ‘modifiable’ (the individual has control over changing it, for example, by eating less saturated fat) or ‘non-modifiable’ (the individual has no control over it and cannot change it).

To record your findings, please copy out the table below and list the information under the relevant headings. You should use as many rows as you need!

TASK 4: For the next task, we’d like you to look into drug treatments used in CVD. Please copy and complete the table below by researching how each drug works, and their risks and benefits to the individual.

TASK 5: Finally, you need to create a reference list, detailing all the websites and pages you’ve used information from. At this stage, you can just paste in the page URL next to the appropriate number that you gave the bit of text in your main document. Your references must appear in square brackets in numerical order, as follows:

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

I hope you enjoy this project and I look forward to seeing what you’ve produced in September.

Alys Dreux
Head of Biology
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