Revision Required Practicals: Microscopy, Food tests, Osmosis, Bacterial Growth
GCSE Biology Required Practical Revision Lessons - Microscopy, Osmosis, and Food Tests
Description: This resource pack includes three comprehensive revision lessons designed to support students preparing for their GCSE Biology exams. These lessons cover the Microscopy, Osmosis, and Food Tests required practicals, offering students clear explanations, engaging activities, and exam-style questions to reinforce their understanding.
Microscopy
Students will gain practical skills in using light microscopes, preparing slides, and calculating magnification. Key concepts such as resolution, contrast, and the method for viewing onion cells are explored through hands-on tasks and revision activities. Students will also review common mistakes and develop their exam skills.
Osmosis
This lesson explores the movement of water across semi-permeable membranes, focusing on how osmosis works in plant and animal cells. Students will engage in practical activities to investigate the effect of concentration gradients and calculate changes in mass, followed by exam questions to test their understanding of this crucial process.
Food Tests
Covering the Biological tests for starch, protein, lipids, and sugars, this lesson allows students to revise the essential steps of each test, including the use of reagents and safety precautions. Students will work through gap-fill exercises and multiple-choice questions to test their ability to identify and interpret the results of food tests, while also practicing key scientific terminology and concepts.
Photosynthesis
Students explore how different factors affect the rate of photosynthesis through a hands-on required practical using pondweed. They develop skills in identifying variables, evaluating method reliability, and interpreting graphs. Misconceptions are actively addressed through discussion and detective-style tasks, ending with a reflective plenary to reinforce key scientific concepts.
Bacterial growth in the lab
This high-impact revision resource supports students in mastering the AQA required practical on bacterial growth and aseptic technique. Through interactive sequencing, self-assessment tasks, exam scaffolds, and a real-world case study plenary, learners develop both confidence and scientific accuracy. The pack bridges practical knowledge with exam success while promoting strong reasoning, clarity of language, and method recall.
Reaction time:
This lesson enables students to explore the structure and function of the human nervous system through the context of the GCSE-required practical on reaction time. Pupils investigate how different variables affect reaction time using the ruler drop test, while learning to control for fair testing, record data accurately, and convert distance to time using a conversion chart. Scaffolded graphing tasks and animated modelling support scientific literacy and numeracy. Students apply their understanding through exam-style questions with prompt-based sentence starters and self-assessment. The lesson concludes with a reflective plenary that connects scientific learning to real-world applications such as driving and sports performance.
Features:
1. Detailed step-by-step explanations for each practical.
2. Exam-style questions for self-assessment and exam preparation.
3. Interactive activities to develop practical lab skills and reinforce core scientific concepts.
4. A focus on scientific accuracy, helping students understand key procedures, terminology, and the reasoning behind each experiment.
5. Real-life applications of osmosis, microscopy, food tests and reaction time to enhance students' contextual understanding.
This set of lessons provides everything students need to confidently approach their Required Practical assessments and perform well in their GCSE Biology exams.
