B2: Scaling up – GCSE OCR Foundation Biology revision notes

What this topic covers

B2: Scaling up has 2 subtopics:

• B2.1 Supplying the cell
• B2.2 The challenges of size

B2: Scaling up lessons by subtopic

27 lessons, grouped by subtopic.

B2.1 Supplying the cell

• Specialised Cells in Animals: Explore how sperm cells, nerve cells and muscle cells are specialised for their specific functions, including their structural adaptations and roles in different organ systems.
• Specialised Cells in Plants: Investigate the structure and function of root hair cells, xylem and phloem cells, and how their specialisations enable them to carry out specific roles in plant tissues and organs.
• Linking Structure to Function: Develop skills to analyse and explain how the structure of different specialised cells relates to their function within tissues, organs, organ systems and whole organisms.
• Cell Differentiation: Animal vs Plant Cells: Understand how animal cells differentiate early in development while plant cells retain the ability to differentiate throughout their lives, and explore why cell differentiation is crucial for multicellular organisms.
• The Cell Cycle and Preparation for Division: Learn about the cell cycle stages and how cells prepare for division by growing and replicating DNA
• Mitosis and Cell Division Process: Explore the mitosis stage and how the cell completes division to form two identical cells
• What are stem cells and where are they found?: Learn about the definition and characteristics of stem cells, and explore where they are found in embryos, adult animals, and plants. Understand how stem cells can differentiate into specialized cell types.
• Medical uses and applications of stem cells: Explore how stem cells can be used in medicine to treat conditions like diabetes and paralysis. Learn about therapeutic cloning and understand the potential risks and ethical considerations surrounding stem cell use.
• Stem cells in agriculture and conservation: Discover how stem cells are used to clone plants for agriculture and conservation purposes. Learn about cloning rare species for protection and producing crops with special features like disease resistance.
• What is diffusion and what affects its rate?: Learn about the process of diffusion and the key factors that control how fast it happens, including concentration gradients, temperature, and surface area.
• Surface area to volume ratio and single-celled organisms: Calculate surface area to volume ratios and understand why single-celled organisms can rely on simple diffusion for all their transport needs.
• Exchange surfaces in multicellular organisms: Explore how multicellular organisms have evolved specialised exchange surfaces and discover the features that make these surfaces highly efficient.
• Understanding Osmosis: Learn what osmosis is and how water moves across cell membranes from dilute to concentrated solutions through partially permeable membranes.
• Measuring and Calculating Water Movement: Practice calculating percentage gain and loss of mass in plant tissue, measuring rates of water uptake, and using percentiles to analyze osmosis data.
• Graphing Osmosis Results: Learn to plot, draw and interpret graphs showing osmosis experiments and water movement data.
• Understanding Active Transport and Comparing Cell Transport Methods: Learn what active transport is and how it differs from diffusion and osmosis. Discover how active transport moves substances against concentration gradients using energy from respiration.
• Active Transport in Action: Plants and Animals: Explore real examples of active transport in living organisms, including how plant roots absorb mineral ions from soil and how sugar is absorbed in the human digestive system.

B2.2 The challenges of size

• Blood Vessels and Their Functions: Explore the structure and function of arteries, veins and capillaries, understanding how their design relates to their role in the circulatory system. Learn to calculate blood flow rates using simple compound measures.
• The Heart and Double Circulation: Discover how the heart works as a pump in the double circulatory system, including the major blood vessels connected to the heart. Learn about the heart's natural pacemaker and artificial pacemakers used to treat heart rhythm problems.
• Heart Structure and Gas Exchange in Lungs: Examine the detailed structure of the heart and lungs, focusing on how the lungs are perfectly adapted for efficient gas exchange through the alveoli and surrounding capillary networks.
• Components of Blood: Learn about blood as a tissue and identify the main components - plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Understand what each component does in the body.
• Blood Cell Structure and Function: Examine the structure of different blood cells and explain how each type is perfectly adapted to carry out its specific function in the body.
• Plant Tissues and Their Functions: Explore the five main types of plant tissue: epidermal tissue, palisade mesophyll, spongy mesophyll, xylem and phloem, and meristem tissue. Learn how each tissue's structure is perfectly adapted to its function.
• The Leaf as a Plant Organ: Discover how the leaf functions as a plant organ containing multiple tissues working together. Focus on the structure and arrangement of epidermis, palisade and spongy mesophyll, xylem and phloem, and guard cells surrounding stomata.
• Plant Transport System Structure: Learn about the structure and adaptations of plant transport tissues including root hair cells, xylem and phloem, and how they form an organ system for substance transport.
• Transpiration and Water Movement: Understand the process of transpiration, the role of stomata and guard cells, and how environmental factors affect transpiration rate.
• Analysing Plant Transport Data: Develop skills in translating, plotting and interpreting data from graphs, charts and tables related to plant transport processes.

More in this course

Go back to the full GCSE OCR Foundation Biology topic list, or practise this topic with past-paper questions.