Grade 10 Quimester I examination

-The exam will cover the learning, content and skills from Units 1, 2 & 3 in Quimester I
-The 5 key science skills will be tested:
o Knowledge and understanding (ie factual recall of learning)
o Application of knowledge and problem solving
o Research and communication
o Experimental investigation
o Data analysis and making conclusions
-All content and learning is archived on the Grade 10 Blog: https://decimossciencelcv.wordpress.com/

KEY LEARNING CONTENT IN QUIMESTER I

-Diagnostic evaluation - turn behaviour in woodlice:
Following instructions
Collecting data
Analysing data
Making conclusions
-Water is amazing!
Simple chemistry and physics of water
Polarity and hydrogen bonding in water molecules define its unusual properties
The importance of water in life
Thermal expansion of water (and rising sea levels)
-The scientific process (how to make a successful research and investigation in science)
Observations
Questions
Hypothesis
Predicting
Testing a hypothesis - this is the experimental investigation or research
Results - collecting results in a table of results
Treating results - simple statistics and/or graphing
Analysing results and making a conclusion
Evaluating the investigation
Communicating
This process was followed twice:
i.
Investigating the thermal expansion of water
ii.
Investigating the reproduction of duckweed
-Using optical microscopes:
Rules and procedures
The parts of an optical microscope
-Animal v Plant cells:
How to prepare animal and plant cells for the microscope, incl. staining
Making drawings from the microscope

The differences and similarities, incl. size

-Relative sizes in biological science:

Metre - millimetre - micrometre - nanometre
The size of living things, especially cells and organelles
-Drawing to scale and working out scale
-Cell organelles: structure and function
-Prokaryotic (bacteria) v Eukaryotic (plant and animal) cells
-Some specialised animal and plant cells
-Organisation in animals and plants:
Cells
Tissues
Organs
Organ systems
Organisms
-The hierarchy of life (or the biological hierarchy)
Atoms
Molecular chemicals
Organelles
Cells
Etc. (as above)
-The cell cycle
-Cancer: its relationship to the cell cycle
-DNA:
DNA structure
DNA replication
-Mitosis:
for growth, repair and reproduction
the stages of mitosis
-Meiosis: simple understanding of the concepts and stages
-Reproduction:
A-sexual reproduction
o Producing identical daughter cells
o Types of a-sexual reproduction
Sexual reproduction
o producing gametes with half the number of chromosomes
-Scientific investigations (in the context of duckweed):
Planning an investigation, incl.

o Making a hypothesis
o Independent variables
o Dependent variables
o Controlled variables
Carrying out the investigation and
Collecting results
Treating results by graphing
Making conclusions
Evaluating the investigation

-The fundamentals of ecology:

Food chains and webs
Ecological niche
Energy flow:
o How is energy lost from ecosystems?
o 10% rule
o Ecological pyramids
Decomposers and nutrient cycling
-Dichotomous keys:
The need for dichotomous keys - classification
How to construct a dichotomous key
-Classification of organisms - the 5 Kingdoms
-Variation
-Evolution by natural selection