Curriculum

Teach Exciting Biology Practicals

Biology has showstoppers too, like a pickled gherkin that glows under mains voltage, and KS3 and KS4 pupils won't forget them.

  • 1 hour 24 minutes
  • 10 modules
  • 1.5 CPD hours
  • Certificate

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14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.

What you'll learn

  • Model natural selection with a competition for food
  • Make natural indicators from red cabbage and other kitchen ingredients
  • Run touch, taste and hearing tests using pupils' own senses
  • Lead an eye dissection with the right precautions
  • Handle sensitive topics, like colour blindness or sexual health, with care

About this course

It's harder to find a high-impact practical in biology than in chemistry or physics, but they're out there.

Each of the 10 practicals here is filmed with the method and the risk assessment points. Pupils compete as "beakies" for food to see natural selection at work, test their own touch, taste and hearing, and make indicator from red cabbage. There's an eyeball dissection, a smoking machine that shows what cigarettes leave behind, and a test-tube activity that models how a sexually transmitted infection spreads through a group.

Some of these need a light touch. You'll get advice on handling them sensitively, whether that's a pupil finding out in class that they're colour blind or getting permission before the sexual health activity.

  • For early career teachers and teachers. Secondary.

10 modules

Open in order

  1. Natural Selection

    11 min
  2. Sensitive to Touch

    12 min
  3. Natural Indicators

    9 min
  4. Taste Challenge

    7 min
  5. Fortified Cornflakes

    3 min
  6. The STD Clinic

    7 min
  7. A Closer Look

    12 min
  8. Glowing Gherkin

    6 min
  9. I’m Over Hear

    14 min
  10. Smoke Signals

    7 min