AC9S10U01 Year 10 Science

AC9S10U01 – Year 10 Science: Biological sciences

Strand

Science understanding

Substrand

Biological sciences

This Content Descriptor from Year 10 Science provides the specific knowledge and skills students should learn. Use it to plan lessons, create learning sequences, and design assessments that align with the Australian Curriculum v9.

Content Descriptor

explain the role of meiosis and mitosis and the function of chromosomes, DNA and genes in heredity and predict patterns of Mendelian inheritance

Elaborations

• using models and diagrams to represent the relationship between genes, chromosomes, and DNA of an organism’s genome
• explaining how genetic information passed on to offspring from both parents by meiosis and fertilisation increases the variation of a species
• using Mendelian inheritance to predict the ratio of offspring genotypes and phenotypes in monohybrid crosses involving dominant and recessive alleles or in genes that are sex-linked
• using pedigree diagrams to show patterns of inheritance of simple dominant and recessive characteristics through multigenerational families
• investigating First Nations Australians’ knowledges of heredity as evidenced by the strict adherence to kinship and family structures, especially marriage laws
• exploring environmental and other factors that cause mutations and identifying changes in DNA or chromosomes
• exploring the role of DNA in cancer or genetic disorders such as haemochromatosis, sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis or Klinefelter syndrome

Achievement Standard This Supports

This Content Descriptor contributes to the following Achievement Standard:

Year 10 ASSCIY10

Year 10 Science Achievement Standard

By the end of Year 10 students explain the processes that underpin heredity and genetic diversity and describe the evidence supporting the theory of evolution by natural selection. They sequence key events in the origin and evolution of the universe and describe the supporting evidence for the big bang theory. They describe trends in patterns of global climate change and identify causal factors. They explain how Newton’s laws describe motion and apply them to predict motion of objects in a system. They explain patterns and trends in the periodic table and predict the products of reactions and the effect of changing reactant and reaction conditions. Students analyse the importance of publication and peer review in the development of scientific knowledge and analyse the relationship between science, technologies and engineering. They analyse the key factors that influence interactions between science and society. Students plan and conduct safe, valid and reproducible investigations to test relationships or develop explanatory models. They explain how they have addressed any ethical and intercultural considerations when generating or using primary and secondary data. They select equipment and use it efficiently to generate and record appropriate sample sizes and replicable data with precision. They select and construct effective representations to organise, process and summarise data and information. They analyse and connect a variety of data and information to identify and explain patterns, trends, relationships and anomalies. They evaluate the validity and reproducibility of methods, and the validity of conclusions and claims. They construct logical arguments based on analysis of a variety of evidence to support conclusions and evaluate claims. They select and use content, language and text features effectively to achieve their purpose when communicating their ideas, findings and arguments to diverse audiences.