Living organisms and their environments
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Why this why now
This unit builds on pupils’ prior learning from Biodiversity, where they explored the variety of life forms and their roles in ecosystems. It deepens their understanding by examining how living organisms interact with their environments, focusing on biotic and abiotic factors that influence species distribution and survival. This prepares pupils for the next unit, Maintaining biodiversity and human impacts, where they will apply their knowledge to explore the effects of human activity on biodiversity and the importance of conservation efforts.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Food chains show the transfer of biomass from producers to consumers, and from prey to predators.
- Food web diagrams represent several interconnected food chains within a community of organisms.
- A change in the size of a population will affect other populations in the same community.
- Habitats are where plants and animals live and they contain living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) parts.
- Organisms interact with the environment in which they live.
- All species have features which make them suited to their environment.
- Changes to the environment may make it harder for organisms to survive in a particular habitat.
- Plants undergo both photosynthesis and respiration.
- Carbon is stored in fossil fuels such as coal, oil and peat.
- The size of populations of organisms can be estimated using sampling techniques.
Threads
Why this why now
This unit builds on pupils’ prior learning from Biodiversity, where they explored the variety of life forms and their roles in ecosystems. It deepens their understanding by examining how living organisms interact with their environments, focusing on biotic and abiotic factors that influence species distribution and survival. This prepares pupils for the next unit, Maintaining biodiversity and human impacts, where they will apply their knowledge to explore the effects of human activity on biodiversity and the importance of conservation efforts.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Food chains show the transfer of biomass from producers to consumers, and from prey to predators.
- Food web diagrams represent several interconnected food chains within a community of organisms.
- A change in the size of a population will affect other populations in the same community.
- Habitats are where plants and animals live and they contain living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) parts.
- Organisms interact with the environment in which they live.
- All species have features which make them suited to their environment.
- Changes to the environment may make it harder for organisms to survive in a particular habitat.
- Plants undergo both photosynthesis and respiration.
- Carbon is stored in fossil fuels such as coal, oil and peat.
- The size of populations of organisms can be estimated using sampling techniques.
Biology
Living organisms and their environments
This unit explores ecosystem organisation, biotic and abiotic factors, material cycling, and the role of decomposers. It covers methods for identifying species and measuring their distribution. Emphasis is on selecting appropriate techniques, accurate measurements, sampling, and fieldwork practices.
8 lessons in unit
slide decks, worksheet PDFs, quizzes and lesson overviews. You can select individual lessons from the Living organisms and their environments unit and download the resources you need, or download the entire unit now. See every unit listed in our OCR secondary combined science curriculum and discover more of our teaching resources for OCR secondary combined science programmes.