Course Description:
This course includes resources designed to support high school students through their preparation in Biology. It will help students gain an understanding of what is expected from them to know for their preparation for colleges. It is a comprehensive coverage of the cell and molecular biology syllabus. The integrated support materials help to maximizing achievements.
Each lesson starts with the essential idea and the main understandings of it. The course includes images and drawings that facilitates learning and understanding. It helps students to gain skills they can apply in their future preparation in any science area.
Each resource includes a discussion question that students may want to share and provokes them to dig deeper in the topic. There are ethical issues involved in some biology topics that could make students to think about them.
The topics included are:
Cell Biology -Introduction to the cells; Ultrastructure of cells ; Membrane structure; Cell cycle; Cell division; The origin of cells
Molecular biology - Molecules to metabolism; Water; Carbohydrates and lipids; Proteins; Enzymes; Structure of DNA and RNA; DNA replication, transcription and translation; Cell respiration; Photosynthesis
Course Goals:
This course is meant to overcome the difficulties in understanding the main concepts in cell and molecular biology. Most of the students who have demonstrated an interest in biology just give up because they think they cannot understand these two main units. This course helps them to understand them and to foster their courage and going on with even deeper digging in biology. Upon completion of this course, students will have the necessary knowledge and skills to advance to grade 12 biology.
Target Audience:
The target audience is 10th, 11th, or 12th grade students who have basic scientific literacy skills and are interested in applied sciences such as biology.
Course Requirements:
The students need to have a notebook to take notes and copy the information written on the board. After each lesson they need to read the attached restores and to complete the tasks given as quizzes and tests. By the end of each lesson preparation they need to make sure that that have understood the statements given in the beginning of each topic.
Course Includes
- Over 30 hours of video content
- 67 engaging video lessons
- 59 key term worksheets
- 52 tests
- 52 test answer keys (for parents only, accessible under resources)
- 67 video explanations of homework papers
- Virtual labs weblinks
- Animation of biological processes weblinks
- Weblinks to videos for visualising biological phenomena
Unit 1. Cell Biology
1. Introduction to the cells
•According to the cell theory, living organisms are composed of cells.
•Organisms consisting of only one cell carry out all functions of life in that cell.
•Surface area to volume ratio is important in the limitation of cell size.
•Multicellular organisms have properties that emerge from the interaction of their cellular components.
•Specialized tissues can develop by cell differentiation in multicellular organisms.
•Differentiation involves the expression of some genes and not others in a cell’s genome.
•The capacity of stem cells to divide and differentiate along different pathways is necessary in embryonic development and also makes stem cells suitable for therapeutic uses.
2. Ultrastructure of cells
•Prokaryotes have a simple cell structure without compartmentalization.
•Eukaryotes have a compartmentalized cell structure.
•Electron microscopes have a much higher resolution than light microscopes.
3. Membrane structure
•Phospholipids form bilayers in water due to the amphipathic properties of phospholipid molecules.
•Membrane proteins are diverse in terms of structure, position in the membrane and function.
•Cholesterol is a component of animal cell membranes.
4. Cell cycle
•Particles move across membranes by simple diffusion, facilitated diffusion, osmosis and active transport.
•The fluidity of membranes allows materials to be taken into cells by endocytosis or released by exocytosis. Vesicles move materials within cells.
5. Cell division
•Cells can only be formed by division of pre-existing cells.
•The first cells must have arisen from non-living material.
•The origin of eukaryotic cells can be explained by the endosymbiotic theory.
•Mitosis is division of the nucleus into two genetically identical daughter nuclei.
•Chromosomes condense by supercoiling during mitosis.
•Cytokinesis occurs after mitosis and is different in plant and animal cells.
•Interphase is a very active phase of the cell cycle with many processes occurring in the nucleus and cytoplasm.
•Cyclins are involved in the control of the cell cycle.
•Mutagens, oncogenes and metastasis are involved in the development of primary and secondary tumours.
Unit 2. Molecular biology
1. Molecules to metabolism
•Molecular biology explains living processes in terms of the chemical substances involved.
•Carbon atoms can form four covalent bonds allowing a diversity of stable compounds to exist.
•Life is based on carbon compounds including carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids.
•Metabolism is the web of all the enzyme-catalysed reactions in a cell or organism.
•Anabolism is the synthesis of complex molecules from simpler molecules including the formation of macromolecules from monomers by condensation reactions.
•Catabolism is the breakdown of complex molecules into simpler molecules including the hydrolysis of macromolecules into monomers.
2. Water
•Water molecules are polar and hydrogen bonds form between them.
•Hydrogen bonding and dipolarity explain the cohesive, adhesive, thermal and solvent properties of water.
•Substances can be hydrophilic or hydrophobic.
3. Carbohydrates and lipids
•Monosaccharide monomers are linked together by condensation reactions to form disaccharides and polysaccharide polymers.
•Fatty acids can be saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated.
•Unsaturated fatty acids can be cis or trans isomers.
•Triglycerides are formed by condensation from three fatty acids and one glycerol.
4. Proteins
•Amino acids are linked together by condensation to form polypeptides.
•There are 20 different amino acids in polypeptides synthesized on ribosomes.
•Amino acids can be linked together in any sequence giving a huge range of possible polypeptides.
•The amino acid sequence of polypeptides is coded for by genes.
•A protein may consist of a single polypeptide or more than one polypeptide linked together.
•The amino acid sequence determines the three-dimensional conformation of a protein.
•Living organisms synthesize many different proteins with a wide range of functions.
•Every individual has a unique proteome.
5. Enzymes
•Enzymes have an active site to which specific substrates bind.
•Enzyme catalysis involves molecular motion and the collision of substrates with the active site.
•Temperature, pH and substrate concentration affect the rate of activity of enzymes.
•Enzymes can be denatured.
•Immobilized enzymes are widely used in industry.
6. Structure of DNA and RNA
•The nucleic acids DNA and RNA are polymers of nucleotides.
•DNA differs from RNA in the number of strands present, the base composition and the type of pentose.
•DNA is a double helix made of two antiparallel strands of nucleotides linked by hydrogen bonding between complementary base pairs.
7. DNA replication, transcription and translation
•The replication of DNA is semi-conservative and depends on complementary base pairing.
•Helicase unwinds the double helix and separates the two strands by breaking hydrogen bonds.
•DNA polymerase links nucleotides together to form a new strand, using the pre-existing strand as a template.
•Transcription is the synthesis of mRNA copied from the DNA base sequences by RNA polymerase.
•Translation is the synthesis of polypeptides on ribosomes.
•The amino acid sequence of polypeptides is determined by mRNA according to the genetic code.
•Codons of three bases on mRNA correspond to one amino acid in a polypeptide.
•Translation depends on complementary base pairing between codons on mRNA and anticodons on tRNA.
8. Cell respiration
•Cell respiration is the controlled release of energy from organic compounds to produce ATP.
•ATP from cell respiration is immediately available as a source of energy in the cell.
•Anaerobic cell respiration gives a small yield of ATP from glucose.
•Aerobic cell respiration requires oxygen and gives a large yield of ATP from glucose.
9. Photosynthesis
•Photosynthesis is the production of carbon compounds in cells using light energy.
•Visible light has a range of wavelengths with violet the shortest wavelength and red the longest.
•Chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light most effectively and reflects green light more than other colours.
•Oxygen is produced in photosynthesis from the photolysis of water.
•Energy is needed to produce carbohydrates and other carbon compounds from carbon dioxide.
•Temperature, light intensity and carbon dioxide concentration are possible limiting factors on the rate of photosynthesis.
