A National STEM Learning Centre and Network Engineering Case Studies resource investigating battery powered lawnmowers and their potential environmental impact.

Lawnmowers have come a long way since they were a mechanical cutter being pushed along by hand. A smart battery (like in your mobile phone) lets you...

A Catalyst article about biologists looking for patterns in the distribution of barnacle species on the sea shore. Barnacles are arthropods which live as tiny larvae in the sea and then cement themselves, head down, on suitable rocks, build a shell, poke their legs out of the top of it and start to filter feed. The...

This practical activity explores beak adaptations in bird populations and looks at the way in which variation in beak shape is related to the available food sources within an environment.

Students simulate bird feeding by using a ‘beak’ to collect food and place it into a stomach. There are four different...

A Catalyst article about Darwin's travels on the Beagle which gave him ideas about evolution. Darwin spent almost five years on board HMS Beagle as it sailed around the world. The purpose of the voyage was to map navigation channels around the coast of South America. Darwin was the ship’s naturalist and companion...

This video introduces an interesting problem of two balls placed in beakers of water.  A ping pong ball is fixed to the bottom of one beaker of water and an acrylic ball suspended into another beaker of water.  Both beakers contain the same amount of water and both balls displace equal amounts of water (they have...

This STEM activity works to develop pupils' knowledge and understanding of sound by giving them the opportunity to make a drum using a range of materials, testing how each material affects the sound. Pupils will then have the chance to make a set of earmuffs using different materials, testing how well each material...

In this resource, students use their STEM skills to help them design and build a model of a flood- proof house. Activities to help them with their design include testing materials (for strength and absorbency) and structures. Set on a fictitious island coping with the devastating effects of flooding caused by...

Produced by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) as part of their 'At Work With Science' series, this resource looks at a hypothetical, but realistic, project aimed at producing a new way of treating bacterial infections. In this activity, students first consider what features are important...

These activities have been developed for the National HE STEM Programme to be used in conjunction with the video resources found in this collection.

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This collection of resources are the result of a project which recognised the need for additional student information, advice and guidance from students to students, staff to students and students to management about what it means to be a student in Higher Education from a widening participation background.

Amy is an ecologist working with the Forestry Commission. Amy is very frank in the video about her school history, describing her school reports as "less than shiny", and the video conveys how applied scientific research focuses her naturally curious nature.

In the video Amy describes how she writes computer...

Becta was the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology in education. It was established in 1997 and closed in March 2011. Becta provided leadership to embed the effective use of technology and provided rigorous research to evaluate the impact of...

This KS2 resource looks at the importance of bees as pollinators and explores some of the threats they face. The activities are based around the work of ‘real world’ scientists in organisations such as Fera.

Activities include:

Pollination roleplay...