Resources to Support Teaching in Year Seven

Students arriving in Year Seven may bring with them very different experiences of science. This unit is composed of over 50 short activities, divided into nine sections, which can be used as a ‘pick-and-mix’ resource to introduce students to the procedures and equipment in a secondary school laboratory and bring all of their experiences to a suitable level for further work in the remainder of the course. Altogether, the Introduction Unit is designed to occupy the first term at secondary school. The context for the unit is the lives and activities of people living in a residential square.

Every section of this unit is built around hands-on practical activities to bring out the underlying science concepts.

1. What will you be doing in science? - A circus of activities to introduce different apparatus and materials in the lab.
2. The street party - Practical activities on freezing, melting and dissolving.
3. Searching for solutions - Liquids other than water; introduction to hazard warning signs; stain removers; solubility of different substances in water; differences between solutions and suspensions
4. Freezing, melting and boiling - Changes of state; freezing as a way of preserving food; use of salt on icy roads.
5. Things are warming up - Design and make thermometers; thermochromic materials; thermal expansion; comparison of thermal conductivity of solids.
6. Variations on winter - Variation between individuals; insulation in clothing or in animal fur, hair or feathers; investigation of snow burdens on plants; microscopic comparison of plant and animal cells; survey of how plants survive the winter.
7. Changing substances - Fizzing of ‘liver salts’; apple browning; setting of plaster of Paris shows energy changes; acids and alkalis.
8. Designing a solar still - The need for fresh water; distilling water.
9. Moving House - Devising schemes for classifying different objects; introduction to some ways of classification.