Most current theories of adaptation and evolution are based on an organism’s inflexible genetic inheritance, where variation depends on chance mutations to the DNA sequence. Now, biologists studying epigenetics are trying to uncover the roles of this more flexible system.

GM, genome editing and CRISPR are all in the news, with hot debate over how new techniques should be regulated. Over the past 50 years, our ability to make specific changes to DNA in plants and animals has been revolutionised.
New techniques of genome editing allow us to make precise changes to individual...

This book, from Unilever, was produced in the context of the availability of proteinaceous foods and world nutritional requirements. A table of foods with percentage content of protein, fat and carbohydrate is provided – together with a breakdown of the comparative animal/vegetable protein consumption by continent...

This Catalyst article explains how scientists came to understand plants' sensitivity to external stimuli and their ability to move. Mimosa pudica...

This book looks at several aspects of plant science: *Soil * Soil nutrients * Food from plants * Growing new plants * Damage to plants Plant Science was one of the Science at Work series. All the booklets in the series were highly illustrated with practical work described, step by step, by 3D line drawings with...

This collection of posters are available to download and print out for your classroom. The posters are accompanied either by articles exploring the science (for post-16 students) or with teaching notes and presentations to explore the ideas behind the poster (for 14-16 students)

Invite pupils to explore how plants are adapted for different biomes with this card sorting activity. There are some unusu...

Invite pupils to explore how plants are adapted for different biomes with this card sorting activity. There are some unusual plant examples of adaptation to discuss including snowdrops and night blooming cereus. Use the teacher’s answer sheet for more information.

This activity is part of...

The activities in this resource help students to name, label and describe the function of part of plant and animal cells and highlight the similarities and differences between these cell types.  It includes a set of cards that can be used for a matching activity or a game of pairs.  Also included are the resources...

In this practical activity, students explore how the technique of re-infection (using infected material to infect healthy plant tissue) can help to identify the cause of a plant disease.

The activity will help students to demonstrate the following learning outcome at KS4:

• describe ways to...

In this practical activity, students use magnification to examine leaves showing symptoms of a common plant disease and produce labelled drawings of the fungal spores.

The activity will help students to demonstrate the following learning outcomes at KS4:

• describe a common plant disease...

In this practical and data analysis activity, students collect samples of leaves showing samples of infection with powdery mildew; the samples can be sent for analysis as part of the ...

The activities in this resource relate to communicable plant diseases, the use of monoclonal antibody diagnostic tests (ELISA), and the use of genome sequencing in identifying plant pathogens. The activities are based around tasks carried out in the ‘real...