Coordination and control: maintaining a constant internal environment
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Why this why now
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.
Prior knowledge requirements
- 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.
Threads
Why this why now
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.
Prior knowledge requirements
- 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.
Biology
Coordination and control: maintaining a constant internal environment
This unit covers the importance of maintaining a constant internal environment, focusing on body temperature control, osmotic balance, and kidney function. It explains the roles of the skin, kidneys, and ADH, and emphasises data extraction, experiment techniques, and accurate data interpretation.
6 lessons in unit
slide decks, worksheet PDFs, quizzes and lesson overviews. You can select individual lessons from the Coordination and control: maintaining a constant internal environment unit and download the resources you need, or download the entire unit now. See every unit listed in our Edexcel secondary biology curriculum and discover more of our teaching resources for Edexcel secondary biology programmes.