How I'm Teaching the New IBDP Biology Syllabus (first Exam May 2025)

It's been about 2 months, 6 subtopics and 1 unit test since I started teaching the new IBDP Biology course and now that I've been through it a bit I feel more confident about sharing my plans with the wider community of IBDP Biology teachers out there. It is important to note that at my current school in Morocco I teach a mix class of SL & HL students, so I need to plan my SL release times so that they are fairly evenly spread throughout the units. It should also be noted that we have students at a wide variety of levels and many are non native-English speakers. These factors all came into play as I decided upon this sequence for my first time through the new syllabus.

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Year 1:

Unit 1: Evolution & Biodiversity (22 hours)

• A2.3 Viruses (HL only)

• A3.1 Diversity of organisms

• A3.2 Classification & cladistics (HL only)

• A4.1 Evolution & speciation

• B4.1 Adaptation to environment

• D4.1 Natural selection

Unit 2: Cell Biology (24 hours)

• A2.1 Origins of cells (HL only)

• A2.2 Cell structure

• B2.1 Membranes & membrane transport

• B2.3 Cell specialization

• D2.1 Cell & nuclear division

Unit 3: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (25 hours)

• A1.1 Water

• B1.1 Carbohydrates & lipids

• B1.2 Proteins

• C1.1 Enzymes & metabolism

• C1.2 Cell respiration

• D2.3 Water potential

Unit 4: Physiology (38 hours)

• B3.1 Gas exchange

• B3.2 Transport

• B3.3 Muscle & motility (HL only)

• C2.1 Chemical signalling (HL only)

• C2.2 Neural signalling

• C3.1 Integration of Body systems

• C3.2 Defence against disease

• D3.3 Homeostasis

Unit 5: Experimental Design for Biology & the IA

• Ethics & experimental design

• Ensuring reliability & validity

• Collecting & processing data

• Statistics

• Mock IA

• Real IA proposal & work time (about 9 of the 10 required hours if possible)

Collaborative Sciences Project

• With Chemistry, Physics & ESS students

• Field work after final exams in June

Year 2:

Unit 5: Experimental Design for Biology & the IA continued

• IA commentary feedback

• Peer editing with checklist

• Upload to IBO

Unit 6: Ecology & the Environment (33 hours)

• A4.2 Conservation of Biodiversity

• B4.2 Ecological niches

• C1.3 Photosynthesis

• C4.1 Populations & communities

• C4.2 Transfer of energy & matter

• D4.2 Stability & change

• D4.3 Climate change

Unit 7: Heredity (39 hours)

• A1.2 Nucleic acids

• D1.1 DNA replication

• D1.2 Protein synthesis

• D1.3 Mutations & gene editing

• D2.2 Gene expression (HL only)

• D3.1 Reproduction

• D3.2 Inheritance

Unit 8: Exam Review

• Past paper questions

• Mini-mocks (real mocks are in January)

While working my way through the new syllabus I debated several different approaches, including teaching it in the order of the Subject Guide (which is what I did the very first time I taught the current syllabus), but I decided to stick with what I know works in terms of general themes and topics. I have found that starting big with Biodiversity & Evolution really prepares students with context and examples for the other topics in the course. I then zoom in to the cellular level, then further in to the molecular biology level & finally move to apply that knowledge while studying physiology. I like to do Genetics last as students tend to forget that one and it's connections to the other units are more obvious and start Year 2 with Ecology (in which I include photosynthesis to keep it separate from Cellular Respiration to avoid confusion & remind students of similarities and differences in Year 2).

I developed several different unit and topic sequences besides the one shared above, which I have chosen to go with this time around... I also have a calculation method that I use to figure out how many classes to spend on each topic, if these planning tools interest you, you can find them in my TPT shop soon (this week, I promise!).

Stay tuned for a future blog post at the end of this school year & next year as I reflect on this particular unit sequence to see if I stick with it or not. So far, I am quite happy with the way the topics in Unit 1 spiraled and reinforced each other, hopefully this trend continues in the next few units.

Thanks for reading teachers, travelers and curious souls of all kinds.

The Roaming Scientist