Apparatus and techniques

In addition to the key areas, candidates must have knowledge of the following pieces of apparatus and have opportunities to become familiar with the following techniques.

Note: The apparatus and techniques noted below can be assessed in the question paper.

Apparatus

• beaker
• balance
• measuring cylinder
• dropper/pipette
• test tube/boiling tube
• thermometer
• funnel
• syringe
• timer/stopwatch
• microscope
• petri dish
• quadrat
• pitfall trap
• light/moisture meter
• water bath

Techniques

• measuring enzyme activity
• using a respirometer
• measuring transpiration using a potometer
• measuring abiotic factors
• measuring the distribution of a species
• using a transect line
• measuring the rate of photosynthesis

Candidates should be familiar with the terms ‘control’, ‘validity’, and ‘reliability’ and be able to comment on these in experimental set-up questions.

Control: set up to compare results of an experiment when no treatment is applied.

Validity: other variables are controlled to ensure any effect is likely to be due to the variable being changed.

Reliability: where consistent values in repeats of experiments are obtained.

Remember:

Co-Co (control – compare)

Va-Va (validity – variables)

Re-Re (reliability – repeat)