Year 10 Science - Psychology and Biology

TERTIARY & CAREER PATHWAYS:

Detective, Chaplain, Counsellor, Life Coach, Market Researcher, Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Social Worker, Sports Psychologist, Psychologist/Psychiatrist, Teacher

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This unit is focused on building students’ understanding of theory and skills needed to study Psychology and Biology. Students explore the ways in which the human mind and behaviour as well as biological factors are interrelated. 

‍They will learn about the biopsychosocial model, including the structure and function of various components of the brain and nervous system and the biological responses such as the fight, flight and freeze response.  

This unit considers the biological and psychological effects of stress including the internal and external causes. The impact GABA dysfunction has on a person’s ability to manage stress and anxiety as well as how cognitive biases affect decision-making and judgment. The Polyvagal Theory will also be learnt and applied to explain the body’s response to stress and safety.

The unit also focuses on the ideas behind human evolution, natural selection and the evidence for evolution. It considers the importance of psychological development and the resultant cultural and technological evolution.

‍While completing the unit students will also undertake an independent student-led investigation and use a variety of instruments to record and graph data in order to identify trends and patterns, form hypotheses and design an experiment to test these hypotheses. They will present their findings as a scientific poster.

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Learning Standards: 

 SCIENCE UNDERSTANDING 

• Multicellular organisms rely on coordinated and interdependent internal systems to respond to changes to their environment 
• An animal’s response to a stimulus is coordinated by its central nervous system (brain and spinal cord); neurons transmit electrical impulses and are connected by synapses 
• The transmission of heritable characteristics from one generation to the next involves DNA and genes
• Scientific understanding, including models and theories, are contestable and are refined over time through a process of review by the scientific community 
• Advances in scientific understanding often rely on developments in technology and technological advances are often linked to scientific discoveries 
• The values and needs of contemporary society can influence the focus of scientific research

SCIENCE INQUIRY SKILLS

• Students develop questions and hypotheses that can be investigated, design and improve appropriate methods of investigation and collect data using various methods
• They explain how they have considered reliability, precision, safety, fairness and ethics in their methods
• They analyse trends in data, explain relationships between variables and identify sources of error. 
• Students evaluate the validity and reliability of claims made in secondary sources with reference to currently held scientific views, the quality of the methodology and the evidence cited
• They construct evidence-based arguments and use appropriate scientific language and  representations

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ASSESSMENT

Assessment across the semester will include a range of tasks such as:

• Topic Tests
• Case Study
• Research Investigation Task
• Examination

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