KS3 & KS4 science curriculum

This unit builds on pupils’ prior learning from Transport and exchange surfaces in plants, where they explored how plants transport water, minerals, and gases. It deepens their understanding by focusing on how organisms maintain a constant internal environment, including processes like temperature and water balance. This prepares pupils for the next unit, Photosynthesis: factors affecting the rate, where they will apply their knowledge of internal regulation to explore how environmental factors influence the rate of photosynthesis in plants.

1. Effect of osmosis and sugar concentration on the mass of plant tissue: practical
2. Effect of osmosis and sugar concentration on the mass of plant tissue: analysis
3. The importance of maintaining constant conditions in the body
4. The importance of maintaining constant conditions in the body, including osmosis
5. The role of the skin in thermoregulation
6. Controlling water balance: the kidneys, nephron structure and kidney failure

• Some substances can move into and out of cell by diffusing through the cell membrane.
• Water moves between the blood and cells by osmosis, a type of diffusion.
• The net movement of particles by diffusion and osmosis is along a concentration gradient.
• Enzymes are the catalysts for many chemical reactions in the body.
• Enzymes work best in optimum conditions and less well when conditions change away from the optimum.
• Humans have a nervous system that that enables us to sense and respond quickly to changes outside and inside the body.
• The human body has an endocrine system that uses hormones to control changes in the body.
• The human endocrine and nervous systems work together to maintain a constant environment in the body.