Heart structure powerpoint presentation and worksheets

These worksheets and presentation are suitable for both AS level and IGCSE/GCSE lessons on structure and function of the heart. The presentation os very simple and concise with no extraneous information to distract pupils from the key facts. This style is a bit of a reaction to some sample presentations I received that were appalling, packed with text, too many pictures on slides and extortionate prices. I just think that sometimes people still get too caught up in all the features of PowerPoint rather than the actual job of delivering key information in as direct a manner as possible (see my previous rant on using PowerPoint).

The worksheets are also simple and note that I have deliberately not included arrows in the labelling worksheets. This is to encourage students to pay close attention to the actual structure being labelled rather than the position of the word on the sheet (that is, not simply transcribing but actually LOOKING at the diagram itself). The worksheets are in colour but do photocopy well in black and white.

Also keep an eye out for the interactive quiz version for heart structure which is useful for independent learning activities or revision (should be added soon). This takes a bit of programming but I will still be offering it for FREE!

CLICK BELOW FOR RESOURCES:

POWERPOINT PRESENTATION:

Heart structure and function teacher

WORKSHEETS:

Heart structure and function standard

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IGCSE Biology: Skin and insulation coursework investigation

Most, if not all exam boards, require students to design, implement and evaluate their own investigations. For Cambridge IGCSE this is assessed by the practical skill C4. A popular coursework experiment for C4 in IGCSE Cambridge is for students to design an practical that models insulation adaptation in animals as there are a wide variety of choices.

Some may compare heat loss between a 100cm3 measuring cylinder (tall and thin or high surface area:volume ratio) and a 100cm3 beaker (short and fat or low surface area to colume ratio). Other students may choose to simulate clothing or fur by adding layers of clothing or wool to test tubes. Investigating huddling with many testubes surrounding one test tube as compared to one lone test tube is also popular as it can always be introduced with the segment from the Life in the Freezer video showing the emperor penguins in the Antarctic.

Another possibility is to investigate the role of fat as an insulating layer in skin. This relates directly to comparing adaptations as well as it is possible to talk about the fat layers laid down by seals etc. This practical simply involves pouring a layer of cooking oil onto the surface of some hot water and comparing the heat loss with a similar beaker of hot water that does not have the oil. I have tried this experiment with both Year 9 and 10 and it works very well. The beauty of this experiment is that the intial simple version can be used as an introduction for studnets to extend it to investigate the effects of different anounts of oil (and perhaps different types). Again I have tried this out and it does show a correlation adding up to 20cm3 of oil in 5 cm3 increments. Unlike many of the experiemnts suggested above this allows students to have a continuous variable to graph and so can be more challenging to analyse whilst being easy to design.

I have added the worksheets below which have the intial introductory practical and the practical design set as homework. It is in Word so is easy to modify. My colleague has used this experiment as a C4 training excersise for the Year 10 students and developed a short checklist to help them write their evaluations. I have added this as well.

Worksheets:

Investigating Skin Structure and Function

Coursework evaluation

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IGCSE Biology: Plant reproduction resources

Hi again.

I tried a little experiment and designed a module that students worked through an interactive PowerPoint presentation and filled in a booklet of worksheets. The presentation was made available via the VLE initially and set up as a PowerPoint Show and set in kiosk mode so that they could only work through it in sequence.

The students were all quite excited by this approach and were keen to get started. Unfortunately our internet connection at school had problems and was quite slow, and as the presentation is quite a big one, it took ages to download. In the end they just saved the actual PowerPoint presentation to their memory sticks and launched it from there. The module took at least a week of lessons and some homework. I also ran through a simpler “teacher version” in review lessons as well.

I am not totally sure how well this module went. There were a few technical difficulties which took the shine off it a little. For example the hyperlinks worked fine on my computer but mysteriously chose not to work on other computers. Equally not all computers prompted to activate the macros automatically so I had to give instructions how to do this (see below for the instruction I placed on the VLE for the students). For some reason the brighter kids seemed more disparaging than those less academically able (and I though it would be the other way round). One student, who is lovely and has ADHD (but has it under control) really liked the module and he seemed much happier learning this way at his own speed and being able to review things at will.

I am still not entirely sure of the efficacy of this mode of delivery (and I had to resist the temptation to then teach it again more formally) and of course I did intermingle the lessons with short practical activities eg. dissecting a bean seed (‘cos we know how to really rock it in Biology!!). One little error is that I forgot to add the nectary to the flower diagrams (I will get round to redoing it eventually) but the kids loved spotting the mistake so that wasn’t a total disaster.

The PowerPoint presentation for students has information slides, multiple choice questions (which have macros to show the answers and are formative), some audio links for additional explanation and links to short video clips. The clips do need to checking before each session as they can disappear from time to time.There is also a “Homepage” that hyperlinks to sections throughout the presentation and the clickbiology icon links on each page links back to this homepage.

I have added the student self-study presentation and the worksheet below. The teachers presentation is also added. If you try it out, let me know what you think.

Here are the instruction I gave to the students:

Plant reproduction

Click on the PowerPoint show. It should ask you to enable macros, if so click yes. If it does not prompt you to enable macros then download the PowerPoint presentation, once it is loaded click on Tools then Macro, next click on Security. Click on the medium setting, the presentation, close it down, re-open it and it should then prompt you to enable Macros. If this does not work then repeat the steps but click on the save low security setting.

NOTE: These are over 7mb so will take some time, it may speed things up in future if you save the presentation to a memory stick rather than downloading each time

Work through each section of the presentation. Ensure that you read each slide carefully, watch any video or listen to audio explanations and do the written activities in your booklets.

Links to the presentation resources are here:

student self-study presentation:

plant-reproduction

Worksheets:

plant_reproduction

teacher presentation:

plant-reproduction-teacher

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GCSE Science podcasts for revision and general listening

My daughter got an iPod Touch for Christmas and I have to say I now want one my self. All of her friends have also received ipods and this has made me think about doing some podcasting for downloading onto ipods, as well as the videos I am developing. I am not alone in considering podcasts for my students as this is also a topic in the TES Science forums. I have come across some excellent audio files via the trusty GCSE Bitesize website and, although they do not match exactly with IGCSE, are an excellent resource. Biology, Chemistry and Physics collections are available and they are well presented. They are run by a group lnown as The Naked Scientists and there are further excellent podcasts available from their own website and may be useful for A level students also. Both links are available below (and are also available on my Links page).

Revision GCSE podcasts from the BBC and Naked Scientists

The Naked Scientists Podcasts

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IGCSE Biology: Enzyme PowerPoint presentation

This is the PowerPoint presentation I used for the enzyme video. It covers most aspects but is lacking some breaks for students to some written work. Hence in the one I use I have added in extra slides with instructions to activities (eg. doing the manganese oxide/yeast and hydrogen peroxide activities, I have added these two slides in a seperate link below) in order to avoid a Death By PowerPoint lecture. The presentation was written to match the old Mary Jones book and is more or less okay for the new one but does need some updating with regards to adding some info on fermenters.

PowerPoint Presentation:

enzymes

Two extra slides for the yeast and managanese oxide introductory activities (they love doing these!)

enzymes-activity-examples

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