TERTIARY & CAREER PATHWAYS:
Detective, Chaplain, Counsellor, Life Coach, Market Researcher, Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Social Worker, Sports Psychologist, Psychologist/Psychiatrist, Teacher
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.
Learning Standards:
SCIENCE AS A HUMAN ENDEAVOR
- scientific knowledge is contestable and is validated and refined over time through expanding scientific methods, replication, publication, peer review and consensus
- advances in technologies have enabled advances in science, while science has contributed to developments in technologies and engineering
- the use of scientific knowledge to address socio-scientific issues and shape a more sustainable future for humans and the environment may have diverse projected outcomes that affect the extent to which scientific knowledge and practices are adopted more broadly by society
- scientific knowledge may be interpreted in different ways by individuals and groups in society; the values and needs of society can influence the focus of scientific research
SCIENCE UNDERSTANDING
- the nervous and endocrine systems work together to regulate and coordinate the body’s response to stimuli, ensuring homeostasis, including through negative feedback mechanisms
- the theory of evolution by natural selection includes the processes of variation, isolation and adaptation and is supported by evidence including the fossil record, biogeography and comparative embryology; the theory explains past and present biodiversity and demonstrates how all organisms have some degree of relatedness to each other
SCIENCE INQUIRY
- investigable questions, reasoned predictions and hypotheses can be used in guiding investigations to test and develop explanatory models and relationships
- valid, reproducible investigations to answer questions and test hypotheses can be planned and conducted, including identifying and controlling for possible sources of error and bias in sampling or in making observations; safe, ethical investigations include undertaking risk assessments and following protocols when accessing cultural sites and artefacts on Country and Place
- data and information can be organised, processed and summarised by selecting and constructing representations including tables, graphs, descriptive statistics, models, symbols, formulas and mathematical relationships
- information and processed data can be analysed and compared to identify and explain qualitative and quantitative patterns, trends, relationships and anomalies
- the validity and reproducibility of investigation methods and the validity of conclusions and claims can be evaluated, including by identifying assumptions, conflicting evidence, biases that may influence observations and conclusions, sources of error and areas of uncertainty
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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