Video: Visual cliff experiment

This is a short clip illustrating the visual cliff experiment, suitable for section 8.5 making sense of what we see:

TED Talks: Visual development

Below are links to some TED talks that address visual development and can extend students covering sections 8.4 visual development and 8.5 making sense of what we see:

How brains learn to see

Our brains are miswired

Optical illusions show how we see

TED talks: Bioengineering and remote controlled bugs

This talk is great for discussion on ethics, progress in tissue engineering etc. This touches on topics covered by the excellent three part series from Channel 4 called Animal Farm.

Interactive powerpoint presentation: brain structure and function

This powerpoint presentation is designed for A2 Biology and matches the Edexcel course as it includes sections on brain imaging technology. However it is fairly standard so would suit all exam boards. A key feature of this presentation is that it has interactive drag and drop exercises so gets the students up to the white board. It also has lots of links to relevant short videos and websites. It also includes a mini quiz to help revise the structure and functions of parts of the brain, students can just write their one word answers on scrap paper. I have also included worksheets to fill in during the presentation and some notes pages in case students are absent etc. Note: if you want to incorporate the drag and drop exercises into your own presentation you will have to modify this presentation and add your own stuff to it, the slides will not copy and paste into other presentations without the drag and drop macro.

PRESENTATION: brain-drag-and-drop

WORKSHEETS: The brain

NOTE SHEETS: Structure and function of the brain notes

A2 Biology: transcription factors PowerPoint presentation

This is a short presentation about transcritpion factors and matches the Edexcel Concept approach textbook (although this textbook is not needed to use the presentation). Obviously it is possible to insert activity and question slides wherever appropriate (eg. last slide for Edexcel activity sheets). The presentation has animations and works best in conjunction with the Hormones and performance enhancing drugs presentation. Personally I would introduce transcription factors first then cover hormones, though the textbooks do it the other way round. If you choose to do it my way then the last activity slide needs to be deleted or transferred to the hormones presentation.

PRESENTATION: Transcription Factors