Welcome to this short, practical course on running the Biology in Practice Investigation. Across six lessons of about 25 minutes each, you will cover how the investigation runs this year, how to support each of its six stages with a whole class, how to run supervised experiment sessions, and how to authenticate the work and take it to submission.
Your survey answers, reflections and plans compile into a downloadable Professional Learning Portfolio when you finish. This lesson establishes your baseline confidence, states the investigation's weighting, marks, common brief and completion date, names the six stages, and shows one way to plan the hours back from Friday 26 February 2027.
Before the course content, rate your current confidence across the five areas this course develops. Answer honestly: lower ratings simply show where the later lessons can help most. You will re-take the same five statements at the end of the course so you can compare each rating with your first.
Watch this presentation on the Biology in Practice Investigation as it runs now: the two assessment components, the 2027 brief and its completion date, the six stages and their hours, and planning back from the completion date.
Study this investigation class planner, filled in for an invented sixth-year class working to the 2027 brief and planned back from the completion date. Read the notes on each choice.
Download the blank planner to use with your own class: Investigation class planner (Word).
Use the planner you have just studied to start a plan for your own class. Download the blank template if you want the full week map beside you: Investigation class planner (Word). On screen, answer one question. It saves to your Professional Learning Portfolio as My Class's Next Date.
In this lesson you set a confidence baseline and mapped how the investigation runs this year.
| Key idea | Why it matters for your teaching | Classroom application |
|---|---|---|
| The 2027 brief: 200 marks, 40% of Leaving Certificate Biology; topic Membranes, Osmosis, Food Preservation | The coursework must be carried out and submitted to the class teacher by Friday 26 February 2027, and schools cannot extend that date | Put the date at the top of your class planner and plan back from it, to an internal finish date a week or two earlier |
| Six stages, about 20 hours | The guidelines give indicative times for each stage; the stages need not run in one continuous block | Start your class at the stage they have reached, and keep up to 4 hours for the final report |
| The experiment under your supervision | The conducting of the experiment, and the gathering of the primary data, must be fully completed under your direct supervision | Our suggestion: book the laboratory for the experiment sessions early, in the Investigation class planner (Word) |
Next: Stage 1 and Stage 2, the guidelines' prompt questions, and the investigative log.
Enrol to take the whole course. Your work is saved as you go, and you get a certificate when you finish.