In this activity from the Institution of Engineering and Technology, students investigate the properties of different categories of smart materials and decide which kinds of materials might offer the best prospects for a financial investment. Students work in teams and...

Receptors under our skin send signals to our brains about the world around us. Engineers are borrowing this idea from the human body to create a ‘smart skin’ for aircraft. In this activity students learn about motes, the tiny sensors at the heart of this innovation, and how science and mathematics are central to...

This resource, from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, is all about helping pupils get to know the solar system.

• There is a lively song and animation in a...

This activity introduces children to simulations - modelling or acting out real-world, or maybe imaginary, situations. Linking to the teaching of space, it asks what factors need to be considered when simulating the solar system. Out of these, the children then decide what the most important things to include in...

This resource provides a selection of lesson plans, worksheets and teachers notes relating to sound at Year Four. They include activities which show that sounds are made when objects vibrate and that sounds travel through solids, liquids and gases. They also look at the structure of the ear, how vibrations are...

This activity could be used in Key Stage 2 as a stand-alone activity, as a focused task to develop skills in the use of the glue gun, or as part of a structures project investigating bridges.

In this activity, students develop both their skills in using a glue gun and demonstrate their understanding of how...

The focus of this activity is on the principle of hydrodynamics through testing boat hull designs in a test tank.

This activity gives students the opportunity to explore and develop their critical thinking and decision making skills through a practical approach....

This Practical Action resource presents a fun hands-on and brains-on challenge for Key Stages Two to Five.

The problem:...

Produced by Science & Plants for Schools (SAPS), this investigation looks at stomatal opening and closing in Commelina communis (Asiatic dayflower). This is achieved by varying the turgor of the guard cells by bathing lower epidermal peels in solutions of different osmotic strengths. Changes in guard cell...

This is one of a suite of continuing professional development (CPD) units from the Department of Education covering the five ‘key ideas’ at Key Stage Three (cells, interdependence, particles, forces and energy). It links with the...

This is one of a suite of continuing professional development (CPD) units from the Department of Education covering the five ‘key ideas’ at Key Stage Three (cells, interdependence, particles, forces and energy). It links with the...

This is one of a suite of continuing professional development (CPD) units from the Department for Education covering the five ‘key ideas’ at Key Stage Three (cells, interdependence, particles, forces and energy). It links with the 2002 Framework for Teaching Science:...

This is a complementary unit from the Department for Education to a suite of continuing professional development (CPD) units covering the five ‘key ideas’ at Key Stage Three (cells, interdependence, particles, forces and energy).

This is one of a suite of CPD units from the Department for Education covering the five ‘key ideas’ at Key Stage Three (cells, interdependence, particles, forces and energy). It links with the ...

This is one of a suite of continuing professional development (CPD) units from the Department for Education covering the five ‘key ideas’ at Key Stage Three (cells, interdependence, particles, forces and energy). It links with the 2002 Framework for Teaching Science:...