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BIOLOGY

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Subject overview

Biology helps learners to understand the biological world in which they live and take an informed interest in science and scientific developments. The syllabus includes the basic principles and concepts that are fundamental to the subject, some current applications of biology, and a strong emphasis on practical skills.

Learners also develop an understanding of the scientific skills essential for progression to Senior Secondary Level, further education or a career related to science. The following are the topics that will be covered:

LIVNG CELLS AND LIFE PROCESSES:

There is nothing more complex in the entire universe than living things. Life comes in an extraordinarily diverse range of forms from microscopic bacteria to giant plants and animals. Each organism has specialized ways of keeping its body working, and of interacting with its environment. Life can be defined as a combination of seven main actions known as the characteristics of life that set living things apart from nonliving things. However big or small, every organism must process food, release energy, and excrete its waste. All will also, to some degree, gather information from their surroundings, move, grow, and reproduce. In this module we will cover the following topics:

Life Processes
Cells
In and out of cells
Enzymes

THE LIVING BODY:

A living body has so many working parts that cells, tissues, and organs will only run smoothly by cooperating with one another in a series of highly organized systems. Each system is designed to carry out a particular function essential to life whether breathing, eating, or reproducing. Just as organs are interconnected in organ systems, the systems interact, and some organs, such as the pancreas, even belong to more than one system. The following topics will be covered in this module:

Food and Digestion
Breathing and Respiration
Reproduction and Growth
Blood and the Circulatory System
The Cardiac Conduction System

THE PLANT WORLD:

All around the planet when the sun shines, trillions of microscopic chemical factories called chloroplasts generate enough food to support all the world’s vegetation. These vital granules are packed inside the cells of plant leaves and ocean algae. They contain
a pigment, called chlorophyll, that makes our planet green and absorbs the sun’s energy to change carbon dioxide and water into life-giving sugar.In this module we will cover topics such as:

Photosynthesis
The structure of a Leaf
Gas Exchange in Plants
Transport in Plants
Transpiration and the Transpiration Stream
Importance of Transpiration

INHERITANCE, VARIANCE AND EVOLUTION:

Life has been evolving on our planet for more than four billion years ever since it was just a world of simple microbes. Across this vast expanse of time, more complex animals and plants developed. Traces of their remains found as fossils in prehistoric rocks have helped us to work out their ancestry. All living things are related and united by a process called evolution. Over millions of years, evolution has produced all the species that have ever lived. Change is a fact of life. Every organism goes through a transformation as it develops and gets older. But over much longer periods of time millions or billions of years entire populations of plants, animals, and microbes also change by evolving. All the kinds of organisms alive today have descended from different ones that lived in the past, as tiny variations throughout history have combined to produce entirely new species.The following topics will explain more about these:

What are chromosomes?
What is a gene?
Making Proteins (Protein Synthesis)
Inherited diseases
Genetic Engineering

Living Cells and Life Processes

The Living body

ATMOSPHERE

The layer of breathable gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen, that surrounds Earth.

BACTERIA

Microscopic organisms with a simple, single-celled form.

BIOLOGY

The science of living things.

CARBOHYDRATE

An energy-rich substance, such as sugar or starch.

CELL

The smallest unit of life.

CLIMATE

The most common weather conditions in an area over a long period of time.

DNA

A material found in the cells of
all organisms that carries instructions for how a living thing will look
and function.

ECOSYSTEM

A community of organisms and the nonliving environment around them.

ENERGY

What enables work to be done. Energy exists in many different forms and cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred.

ENZYME

A substance produced in living organisms that acts as a catalyst and speeds up chemical reactions.

EROSIONA

The process by which Earth's surface rocks and soil are worn away by the wind, water, or ice.

EVAPORATION

A process by which a liquid changes into a gas.

EVOLUTION

The process by which Earth's species gradually change over long periods of time, such as millions of years, to produce new species.

EXCRETION

The process by which living organisms expel or get rid of waste produced by cells of the body.

FERTILIZATION

The joining of male and female sex cells so they develop into new life.

FOSSIL

The preserved remains or impressions of life from an earlier time.

FOSSIL FUEL

A substance formed from the remains of ancient organisms that burns easily to release energy.

GENE

One of the tiny units carried on DNA that determine what a living thing looks like and how it functions.

GLUCOSE

A simple carbohydrate, or sugar, made by photosynthesis and then used by cells as a source of energy.

HABITAT

The area where an animal naturally makes its home.

INHERITANCE

The range of natural characteristics passed on to offspring by parents.

NUCLEUS

The control center inside the cells of most living organisms. It contains genetic material, in the form of DNA. Also: the central part of an atom, made of protons and neutrons.

NUTRIENT

A substance essential for life to exist and grow.

ORGAN

A group of tissues that makes up a part of the body with a special function. Important organs include the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys.

ORGANISM

A living thing.

PHOTOSYNTHESIS

The process by which green plants use the sun's energy to make carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.

POLLEN

Tiny grains produced by flowers, which contain the male cells needed to fertilize eggs.

PROTEIN

A type of complex chemical found in all living things, used as enzymes and in muscles.