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As John Connell reported yesterday, an Autopsy was performed on a dead Fulmar bird by Dr Jan Andries Franeker, a senior scientist at the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem studies in the Netherlands. It was broadcast via video (GlowMeet) on the Glow portal.
Yesterday my Higher Biology class and I were lucky enough to participate [...]

The SQA Biology exams took place yesterday. I managed to get my hands on a complete set of papers in the afternoon so I was able to have a look at them last night. Here are a few thoughts.
Standard Grade General Level.
I thought this was quite a hard paper. Both the kidney and the heart were covered [...]

CONCLUSION:

‘A ripe tomato produces enough Ethylene to stimulate the ripening process in another 48 fruits’
T.Watson- Unit 0A04, Plant Physiology, Semester 4, 1997.
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself talking about the process of fruit ripening to my colleagues during a coffee break (I am not sure how I managed to get onto the topic, [...]

Learning Outcome 3’s (LO3) are the practical aspects of a number of SQA courses. Pupils must pass at least one of these in order to be presented for the final examination. Pupils can only pass if their written report conforms to the SQA criteria. I am currently teaching my Higher Biology class the Chemistry of [...]

On Friday I attended our Biology Subject Support Group meeting at Preston Lodge High School, chaired by Fraser Kiernan. These meetings are always good for catching up with fellow East Lothian Biology Teachers and of course sharing our good practice. We covered many topics during Friday’s meeting including relevant resources, risk assessment and a proposal [...]

We are now in our second week of an HMIe inspection at Knox Academy. This is our week of intensive observation.
Although my department was not chosen to be fully inspected, we were hoping that we would have the satisfaction of an HMIe visit.
Today was our/my lucky day! I was fortunate enough to have the [...]

The Biology Department at Knox Academy put on a fish dissection annually. We do this every February during a named lunchtime. We show the dissection under our video microscope on screen. It can sometimes be quite difficult to identify the various inner organs, so we have a prepared slide show on a second screen that [...]

With an HMI inspection looming, time is very tight. I feel confident that we will gain very good feed back.
However, I am starting to upload lots of jpegs onto flickr. These can be used by pupils and staff for projects. There are no copyrights so feel free to edit and distribute.
You will find the first sets for [...]

As you may have noticed, I am currently collecting information on ‘Useful Websites’. I want to create a catalogue of sites that are/will be particularly relevant to Science Teachers and Learners across Scotland. Initially, I am looking for sites that relate to my field; Science and Biology. This week I have asked my pupils to [...]

Today, at Knox Academy, we were happy to give a warm welcome to East Lothian’s Environmental Health Officer, Scott Hood. We invited Scott to give a presentation to our Higher Biology pupils, on the topic of ‘Adaptations In Rodents’. We were very pleased when he accepted the invitation.
His presentation was particularly relevant to the Higher Biology [...]