Section 1. Nucleic acids 2.4 Water and its functions NEW Year 12 Biology specification

An entire resourced lesson including a 28-slide high quality PowerPoint slides providing key content and illustrative information about the properties of water and the biological significance of water. Integrated activities included in the PowerPoint are a starter competition - How many drops of water can you fit on a coin and a couple of Mini-plenaries in the form of true or false quizzes.

Following information about the biochemistry of water (slides 5 to 12) at slide 13 it is suggested in the ppt that students can then use the handout (Properties of water pupil activity) with images of the biological properties of water. Here students use the list of key terms and attempt to link them to each of the images. In doing so they are able to identify the role of water in each scenario and so begins their journey of understanding the variety of functions or roles of water.

At slide 14 there is a list of the biologically important roles of water. At this point some students may be able to define some of them. Any gaps are filled in through delivering the main content from Slides 15 - 27 which details the properties, highlighting key words and puts each of these properties into context with descriptions and illustrations.

Following the main content delivery and the mini-plenaries you can get students engaged in a sorting task (cut and paste activity) on the properties and biological significance of water which has students cut and paste A3 sized copies of definitions and descriptions into a structured table. This task is intrinsically differentiated as students can start with the easier definitions and by a process of elimination will leave more difficult options until last where they may need to seek help from each other or the teacher. The second step is then to match up the biological significance descriptions with the correct property and again by a process of elimination this step is also intrinsically differentiated. As an alternative you may prefer students to highlight or colour code the definitions and descriptions matching them to the property - this would certainly be quicker and suit more able students.

Finally Exam Questions on Water and corresponding mark schemes are included.

The lesson is designed to achieve the following graded learning objectives:

1. Describe the structure of a water molecule (Grade C)
2. Explain the role of inorganic ions in organisms and the properties of water (Grade B)
3. Summarise the importance of water molecules to living organisms (Grade A)