Australian Capital Territory

Key Content and Concepts

Key Processes

Essential Elements

Interdependence:

• nature of ecosystems and the interactions that take place within them.

Characteristics of life:

• common requirements of organisms;
• ways in which organisms maintain themselves, reproduce and develop;
• the survival of organisms in situations of challenge and environmental stress;
• application of technology to explore, maintain or modify biological functions.

Diversity, similarities, evolution and classification:

• origin and diversity of life on earth;
• need to classify organisms into groups;
• inheritance;
• adaptation, speciation and extinction;
• structure and function of DNA;
• bio-technology, including genetic engineering, as a means of altering the path of evolution.

Human impact:

• human interactions with the environment;
• conservation, recycling and pollution;
• significance in social, economic, technological and personal contexts.

Nature of biological knowledge:

• understanding ways that scientific knowledge is developed and tested;
• understanding science as a social construct.

Investigating in biology:

• identifying scientific questions;
• planning and design;
• experimental techniques;
• observing, selecting, collecting, measuring and recording data;
• interpreting, analysing and evaluating data;
• discussing findings in the context of existing theory;
• reporting findings.

Acquiring and applying biological knowledge:

• locating information from diverse sources;
• evaluating, appraising, synthesising and selecting relevant information;
• understanding and recalling facts and concepts;
• communicating in a variety of formats;
• applying biological knowledge to more complex theoretical problems and in wider contexts.