Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in Biology · 4BI1
Topic 5 · Use of biological resources
Biology put to work — glasshouses, fertilisers, pest control, yeast and bacteria in food, fermenters, fish farming, selective breeding, genetic modification and cloning.
8 lessons, covering 20 specification statements: 5.1 · 5.2 · 5.3 · 5.4 · 5.5 · 5.6 · 5.7 · 5.8 · 5.9 · 5.10 · 5.11 · 5.12 · 5.13 · 5.16 · 5.14 · 5.15 · 5.17 · 5.18 · 5.19 · 5.20
The lessons
- Increasing Crop Yield — Everything a grower does is one of two things — remove whatever is limiting the crop, or remove whatever is competing with it. (5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4)
- Yeast, Bread and Fermentation — One organism respiring without oxygen — and two industries built on the two different products it makes. (5.5, 5.6)
- Yoghurt and the Industrial Fermenter — Bacteria turned into a manufacturing process — and the vessel built to give them the best conditions they will ever have. (5.7, 5.8)
- Fish Farming and Selective Breeding — Growing food by controlling every loss of energy — and by doing deliberately what the environment does by accident. (5.9, 5.10, 5.11)
- Genetic Engineering — Cutting a gene out of one organism and making another organism read it — and the reason that works at all. (5.12, 5.13, 5.16)
- GM Insulin and GM Crops — The same technique used twice — once to brew a human hormone in a tank, and once to change what a field can grow. (5.14, 5.15)
- Micropropagation — Growing thousands of identical plants from a few cells — and why this only works because a plant cell never quite gives up its options. (5.17, 5.18)
- Cloning Mammals — How a lamb was built from an udder cell, what that proved about every cell in your body, and what such animals are now used for. (5.19, 5.20)