Science
Living things, matter, energy and the Earth, explained step by step. Clear diagrams and everyday examples connect what you learn to the world around you.
Chapter 1 — Living Tissues
What a plant or an animal is actually built out of. Each tissue is taken apart in turn — what its cells look like, where it sits, and why that structure is exactly what its job needs.
Chapter 2 — Photosynthesis
Grade 10 said photosynthesis happens and gave the equation. This chapter shows how the raw materials reach the leaf, what becomes of what is made, and how every factor in that equation was actually proved.
Chapter 3 — Mixtures
Almost nothing in the natural world is pure. This chapter takes mixtures apart: what makes one uniform or not, how much of a thing will dissolve and why, how to say exactly how much is in a solution, and the eight ways a mixture can be pulled back into its parts.
Chapter 4 — Waves and their applications
Ripples on a pond, the light from the sun and the sound of a drum are all waves. This chapter shows what a wave carries and what it leaves behind, how to measure one, the whole electromagnetic spectrum and its uses, and what makes one sound high, loud or unmistakably a violin.
Chapter 5 — Optics
Why a spoon looks bent in water, why a shaving mirror makes a face bigger and a car's side mirror makes the road smaller, and how a lens can throw a sharp picture onto a screen. Reflection and refraction, mirrors and lenses, and the rays that predict every image.
Chapter 6 — Human body processes
How the body keeps itself running: digesting food, breathing and releasing energy, getting rid of waste, moving blood around, and co-ordinating all of it with nerves and hormones — plus the diseases that follow when one of these goes wrong.
Chapter 7 — Acids, bases and salts
What makes a substance an acid or a base, how strong it is and how to tell with indicators and the pH scale, how acids and bases react to make salts, and where neutralisation turns up in everyday life.
Chapter 8 — Heat changes in chemical reactions
Every chemical change comes with a heat change: reactions that give out heat and reactions that take it in, how to draw them on an energy level diagram, how to measure the heat with Q = mcθ, and where both kinds turn up in everyday life.
Chapter 9 — Heat
Temperature and how it is measured, heat and how much it takes to warm something — Q = mcθ — the hidden heat of melting and boiling, why things expand when they are heated, and the three ways heat travels: conduction, convection and radiation.
Chapter 10 — Power and energy in electrical appliances
What appliances turn electricity into, how fast they use it — P = VI — and how much they use — E = VIt; choosing efficient appliances; how electricity reaches and is wired through a home, the devices that keep it safe, and how the bill is counted in kilowatt-hours.
Chapter 11 — Electronics
How semiconductors conduct with electrons and holes, how doping makes n- and p-type material, the p-n junction and the diode, turning AC into DC and smoothing it, LEDs and solar cells, and the transistor as an amplifier and a switch.
Chapter 12 — Electrochemistry
How a chemical reaction can drive a current — the simple cell, oxidation and reduction; how a current can drive a reaction — electrolysis of melts and solutions, the Downs cell and electroplating; and why iron rusts, what speeds it up, and how to stop it.
Chapter 13 — Electromagnetism and electromagnetic induction
How a current makes a magnetic field and how a field pushes on a current — the corkscrew and grip rules, Fleming’s left-hand rule, the loudspeaker and the DC motor; and how a changing field makes a current — Faraday’s induction, Fleming’s right-hand rule, the dynamo, the microphone, direct and alternating current, and transformers.
Chapter 14 — Hydrocarbons and their derivatives
What organic compounds are and how to show that a fuel holds carbon and hydrogen; the alkanes from methane to pentane and their general formula; ethene and its derivatives; and polymers — polythene, PVC, Teflon and rubber, how their chains are built, what they are used for, and what they do to the environment.
Chapter 15 — The biosphere
How living things are organised from the individual to the biosphere and how populations grow; how energy and nutrients flow through food chains, pyramids and the carbon and nitrogen cycles; what pollutes the environment and what that does to it and to our health; and how sustainable development, traditional knowledge and careful use of waste and energy can protect it.