Cell biology – GCSE AQA Higher Biology revision notes

What this topic covers

Cell biology has 3 subtopics:

• Cell structure
• Cell division
• Transport in cells

Cell biology lessons by subtopic

22 lessons, grouped by subtopic.

Cell structure

• Understanding Cell Types: Eukaryotes vs Prokaryotes: Students will explore the key differences between eukaryotic cells (plant and animal cells) and prokaryotic cells (bacterial cells), comparing their structures, size, and how genetic material is organized in each type.
• Setting up sterile cultures and bacterial growth: Learn how to prepare sterile equipment and culture media, use aseptic techniques to create uncontaminated bacterial cultures, and understand how bacteria multiply through binary fission
• Measuring and calculating bacterial populations: Master the calculations needed to work out bacterial colony areas using πr² and determine bacterial population growth over time using division rates, including expressing answers in standard form
• Cell Differentiation: Animal vs Plant Cells: Understand how animal cells differentiate early in development while plant cells retain the ability to differentiate throughout their lives, and explore why cell differentiation is crucial for multicellular organisms.
• Comparing Animal and Plant Cell Structures: Explore the key organelles found in animal cells including the nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane, mitochondria and ribosomes. Compare these with plant cells which contain additional structures like chloroplasts, permanent vacuole and cell wall.
• Structure and Function Relationships in Cells: Understand how the structure of key organelles relates to their function, including nucleus, cell membranes, mitochondria and chloroplasts. Learn to estimate and compare the relative sizes of sub-cellular structures.
• Development of Microscopy Techniques: Explore how microscopy techniques have evolved over time and understand the advantages of electron microscopy over light microscopy in revealing sub-cellular structures.
• Magnification Calculations: Learn to calculate magnification, real size and image size using the magnification formula, including expressing answers in standard form.

Cell division

• The Cell Cycle and Preparation for Division: Learn about the cell cycle stages and how cells prepare for division by growing and replicating DNA
• Mitosis and Cell Division Process: Explore the mitosis stage and how the cell completes division to form two identical cells
• Chromosomes, DNA and Genes: Understanding the structure and organisation of genetic material in cells, including how DNA is organised into chromosomes and the relationship between chromosomes, genes and their location in body cells.
• What are stem cells and where are they found?: Learn about the definition and characteristics of stem cells, and explore where they are found in embryos, adult animals, and plants. Understand how stem cells can differentiate into specialized cell types.
• Medical uses and applications of stem cells: Explore how stem cells can be used in medicine to treat conditions like diabetes and paralysis. Learn about therapeutic cloning and understand the potential risks and ethical considerations surrounding stem cell use.
• Stem cells in agriculture and conservation: Discover how stem cells are used to clone plants for agriculture and conservation purposes. Learn about cloning rare species for protection and producing crops with special features like disease resistance.

Transport in cells

• Understanding Active Transport and Comparing Cell Transport Methods: Learn what active transport is and how it differs from diffusion and osmosis. Discover how active transport moves substances against concentration gradients using energy from respiration.
• Active Transport in Action: Plants and Animals: Explore real examples of active transport in living organisms, including how plant roots absorb mineral ions from soil and how sugar is absorbed in the human digestive system.
• What is diffusion and what affects its rate?: Learn about the process of diffusion and the key factors that control how fast it happens, including concentration gradients, temperature, and surface area.
• Surface area to volume ratio and single-celled organisms: Calculate surface area to volume ratios and understand why single-celled organisms can rely on simple diffusion for all their transport needs.
• Exchange surfaces in multicellular organisms: Explore how multicellular organisms have evolved specialised exchange surfaces and discover the features that make these surfaces highly efficient.
• Understanding Osmosis: Learn what osmosis is and how water moves across cell membranes from dilute to concentrated solutions through partially permeable membranes.
• Measuring and Calculating Water Movement: Practice calculating percentage gain and loss of mass in plant tissue, measuring rates of water uptake, and using percentiles to analyze osmosis data.
• Graphing Osmosis Results: Learn to plot, draw and interpret graphs showing osmosis experiments and water movement data.

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More in this course

Go back to the full GCSE AQA Higher Biology topic list, or practise this topic with past-paper questions.