Animal Nutrition, Grade 11: The Type of Diabetes the Summary Loses, and Five More Corrections

The revision summary for this topic says that diabetes occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin.

That is Type 1. It is not the type that is increasing, and it is not the type most South Africans with diabetes have.

What makes it worse is that the teaching pages a few folios earlier get it right. They explain insulin resistance properly, and they say Type 2 is becoming more common. Then the summary, which is the part a learner actually revises from, keeps only Type 1, and two bullets later links diabetes to obesity, which is Type 2.

This page gives all eight units, six places where the printed account is wrong or incomplete, and an honest account of what we can and cannot supply for this topic. We sell four human torso models and every one of them is out of stock, so that is said here rather than discovered at the checkout.

Where this fits in the curriculum

Subject Life Sciences
Grade 11
Term 2
Topic Topic 6, Animal nutrition
Units Eight. Diets and dentition, the alimentary canal, mechanical digestion, chemical digestion, absorption and assimilation, glucose homeostasis, food intake and health, alcohol and drug abuse
Formal assessment None. The diabetes case study is a 15 mark activity
Marks Our worksheet is 85

Finding 1: the summary keeps the wrong diabetes

"Diabetes occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin." That is the whole bullet.

Type 1 Type 2
What goes wrong The pancreas cannot produce enough insulin The body stops responding to the insulin it does produce
Insulin present Too little or none Often plenty, sometimes more than normal
Usually begins Childhood or young adulthood Adulthood, and increasingly earlier
Linked to diet and activity No Yes
In the printed summary Yes No

The teaching pages are fine. They state that very high sugar in the diet makes the body resistant to the action of insulin, that Type 2 is becoming more common as people eat refined and fast foods and move less, and that doctors are seeing it in overweight youngsters. All correct.

None of that survives into the summary. And the summary then says, in the very next unit, that lifestyle diseases such as diabetes are linked to obesity. That sentence is about Type 2, which the summary has just defined out of existence.

Revise from the summary alone and you will answer a diabetes question with "the pancreas does not make enough insulin" and lose the marks. The exam-safe version is two sentences: Type 1 is a shortage of insulin, Type 2 is a failure to respond to it.

And the matching overstatement

The teaching pages also say that Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by medication, diet and exercise, "without daily injections of insulin".

Often, not always. Type 2 is progressive, and a significant number of people with it do end up needing insulin. Learn it as "many people with Type 2 do not need insulin injections", not as a rule, because the rule version is wrong and a learner may well be sitting next to someone it is wrong about.

Finding 2: the balanced diet is missing two of its parts

"A balanced diet consists of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals."

Water and fibre are not in that list. Both are standard, both are examinable, and one of them is the reason the large intestine appears in this same topic.

Component Why it belongs in the list
Carbohydrates The body's main energy source
Proteins Growth and repair
Fats Energy store, insulation, cell membranes
Vitamins Small quantities, specific deficiency diseases
Minerals Calcium, iron, iodine and the rest
Water Every reaction in the body happens in it, and it is the medium everything is transported in
Fibre Not digested at all. It gives the muscles of the gut something to push against, which is what keeps peristalsis working

Fibre is the one that gets missed and the one that is interesting. It is the only part of a balanced diet that is useful precisely because the body cannot digest it.

Finding 3: marasmus without protein

"Lack of protein in the diet causes kwashiorkor. A severe lack of carbohydrates and fats causes marasmus."

Read those two sentences together and they do not work. If marasmus is a shortage of carbohydrates and fats only, then a child with marasmus is getting enough protein, and there is then nothing to separate the two conditions in a way a learner can use.

Kwashiorkor Marasmus
What is short Protein, while energy intake is roughly adequate Everything. Total food intake, energy and protein together
Appearance Swelling, particularly a distended abdomen Severe wasting, very low body weight
Typical age Often after weaning onto a starchy diet Often in infancy

The distinction that earns the mark is protein against total intake, not carbohydrate against protein. Add the word protein to the marasmus sentence and both definitions start working.

Finding 4: the alcohol unit never mentions the liver

Unit 8 is three bullets long. Long-term alcohol use leads to a range of diseases, alcohol is a major cause of road accidents in South Africa, and drugs change the way the brain works.

The liver is not in it.

This is a missed connection rather than an error, and it is a big one, because the same topic has already spent two units building the liver up:

Where the liver has already appeared What it was doing
Unit 2, the alimentary canal Named as an associated gland
Unit 5, the hepatic portal system Everything absorbed from the small intestine goes to the liver first
Unit 5, assimilation "The liver plays several important roles in assimilation"
Unit 6, glucose homeostasis Where glucose is stored as glycogen and released again
Unit 8, alcohol Nothing

Alcohol is absorbed and goes straight to the liver, like everything else, and the liver is what has to break it down. Sustained heavy drinking damages the organ doing that work, and once it is damaged, the glycogen store and the processing of everything else absorbed are damaged with it.

This is the one place in the topic where all eight units join up. If you teach one thing from Unit 8, teach that the organ in the hepatic portal system and the organ alcohol damages are the same organ.

Finding 5: premolars cannot cut, because incisors do

"Incisors cut the food. Canines tear the food, Premolars cut and grind food. Molars grind the food material into small pieces."

Cutting is given to two different teeth in one sentence. A learner asked which teeth cut food now has two defensible answers and only one of them will be on the memorandum.

Tooth Shape What it does
Incisor Flat, chisel edge Cuts and bites
Canine Pointed Tears and grips
Premolar Two cusps Crushes and grinds
Molar Broad, several cusps Crushes and grinds

Premolars and molars do the same job, and that is the honest answer: premolars are smaller molars. Nothing is lost by saying so, and the word cut goes back to the incisors where it belongs.

Finding 6: the summary for Unit 5 is missing half its own title

The unit is called absorption and assimilation, and it has sub-sections on assimilation and on elimination.

The first three bullets of its summary are all about absorption. Assimilation and egestion do appear, but only after the page turns, which is where a learner revising a unit summary is least likely to look for them.

Term What it means Where learners put it
Absorption Digested molecules pass through the gut wall into the blood Correctly
Assimilation Those molecules are converted into other molecules inside the body cells and used Often confused with absorption
Egestion Undigested material leaves as faeces Often confused with excretion

Egestion and excretion are not the same thing and the difference is examined. Egestion removes material that was never absorbed, so it was never part of the body. Excretion removes waste the body itself produced.

What the eight units actually cover

Unit What is in it
1. Animal diets and dentition Herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, and how the teeth of each are specialised
2. The alimentary canal The five stages of nutrition, the regions of the canal, and the associated glands
3. Mechanical digestion Chewing, the four tooth types, the bolus and peristalsis
4. Chemical digestion Carbohydrases, proteases and lipases, and the fact that each works best at a different pH
5. Absorption and assimilation Adaptations of the small intestine, villi, the hepatic portal system, assimilation and egestion
6. Glucose homeostasis Negative feedback, insulin and glucagon, and diabetes
7. Food intake, energy, growth and health Balanced diets, energy requirements, allergies, supplements, malnutrition and tooth decay
8. Alcohol and drug abuse Three bullets. See finding 4

The five stages, in order, because they are a free five marks

  1. Ingestion. Food is taken in
  2. Digestion. It is broken down, mechanically and chemically
  3. Absorption. The small molecules cross the gut wall into the blood
  4. Assimilation. The cells convert and use them
  5. Egestion. What was never digested leaves as faeces

Two things worth adding in class

What is printed What to add
"Insulin causes glucose to be converted into glycogen." True, and it is not the main thing insulin does. Insulin's first action is to make body cells take glucose out of the blood. Storage as glycogen is what happens to the surplus. A learner who only knows the glycogen half cannot explain why a Type 2 diabetic has high blood glucose while their liver is perfectly capable of storing it
"Fluoride in drinking water supplies can help to prevent tooth decay." Fluoridation of public water has been mandatory in South Africa since 2000, but whether it reaches a particular tap depends entirely on the water supplier, and a learner should not assume theirs is fluoridated. The route that works here is fluoride toothpaste

What this topic costs, and what we cannot supply

Most of this topic is taught from a diagram. There is no formal assessment and no prescribed practical, so nothing here is compulsory spending.

What we have

Item Price In stock For
Human tooth model, 2 parts R399,00 4 Enamel, dentine, pulp and root, in the hand
Human teeth models, set of 5 R1 650,00 1 The four tooth types side by side, which is finding 5 made physical
Basic histology slide set of 25 R575,00 12 Tissue sections under a microscope. Check the slide list before ordering if villi are what you need

What we do not have, said plainly

  • Every human torso model we list is out of stock. There are four of them, from R2 950,00 to R11 875,00, and the shelf is empty. We are not going to link you to them
  • We do not stock amylase, pepsin, Benedict's solution or iodine solution. If you want to run an enzyme practical for Unit 4, we cannot supply the reagents and you should buy them from a chemical supplier
  • There is no digestion or balanced diet wall chart in our range. The wall chart range is mostly geography

A tooth model and a set of diagrams will teach this topic. The torso models are magnificent and most schools that own one bought it twenty years ago. If you need one, tell us and we will tell you honestly when we can get it, which is not the same as taking the order today.

Microscopes at microscopes.

What you should be able to do by the end

  • Name the five stages of nutrition in order, and keep assimilation and egestion apart from absorption and excretion
  • Describe the dentition of a herbivore and a carnivore and say what each tooth type does
  • Name the three enzyme groups and the food group each acts on
  • Explain why pH matters to where in the canal each enzyme works
  • Describe a villus and explain every feature in terms of absorption
  • Explain the hepatic portal system and why everything absorbed meets the liver first
  • Work through glucose homeostasis as negative feedback, in both directions
  • Distinguish Type 1 from Type 2 diabetes in one sentence each
  • Give the full list for a balanced diet, water and fibre included
  • Distinguish kwashiorkor from marasmus on protein against total intake

Free worksheet and marking memo

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