Students test a range of foods to find out if they contain protein, fat, reducing sugar and calculate how much energy is in each of the foods. Food tests include:

• Protein content - Biuret test

• Fat content – Emulsion test

• Reducing sugar content – Benedict’s test

• Starch content –...

This resource, from SAPS, supports the use of practicals across 2015 A-level biology specifications.

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This experiment provides a quick and eye-catching way to teach about the vascular tissue in plants and the structure of plant stems. It provides students with the opportunity to develop (and demonstrate) their scientific drawing skills as well as their use of a light microscope and eye-piece graticule.

The...

This updated version of the SAPS algal balls resource is designed to support the use of practicals across 2015 A-level biology specifications.

Students measure the rate of photosynthesis in comparison to the rate of respiration. Because of this, it is possible to determine the light intensity at which the...

This resource from SAPS supports the use of practicals across 2015 A level biology specifications.

...

The Birmingham Institute for Forest Research (BIFoR) is home to the BIFoR F...

In this activity, students look at cheek cells under a microscope to identify basic cell structures.  It allows students to practice their microscope skills, making a slide, staining a sample and making observations.

In this Crest Award accredited project, students monitor levels of atmospheric sulfur dioxide and rainfall acidity in the school grounds.  Suggested investigations include:

•  Investigate various methods of measuring acidities between pH4 and pH7, to decide which method is most accurate.
• Compare...

In this project students will research ways of detecting low concentrations of lead and apply these to test samples from the environment. The objective is to investigate whether lead from petrol still persists at the roadside in order to determine whether there is a lurking legacy of lead.

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This project encourages students to make contact with a business that performs quality control analyses, such as a public analyst who tests samples for the Trading Standards Department.  Students will need to carry out both quantitative and qualitative analysis on tablets with a single active ingredient, such as...

In this project, students make their own aspirin or paracetamol and then test the purity of the pain-reliever and compare it to shop-bought.  This covers titrations, chromatography and other analytical techniques.

The aim of this project is to investigate the properties of alcohol/water mixtures, and how these properties can be used to measure alcohol content. The alcohol in drinks is ethanol, C₂H₅OH. However, the ethanol used in the laboratory has been methylated by adding 5% of methanol, CH_3...

This is a modelling activity where students use sampling techniques to determine the distribution and abundance of organisms in a simulated habitat. Students will simulate the mark–release–recapture technique (Lincoln Index) for estimating population sizes of mobile species. 

Curriculum links include: ...

In this investigation, students extract iron from a breakfast cereal and consider how our bodies are able to digest iron by looking at its reactions with hydrochloric acid.

These activities allow students to model how environmental scientists compare diversity in different ecosystems by using ordinary playing cards as ‘species’ to generate data to calculate Simpson’s Diversity Index. This can be completed in a single lesson. Some students find the concept of species diversity quite...