This activity, from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), explores the qualities and/or properties which make a material fit for purpose. The resource is designed to allow students to:

• understand that...

The Nuffield Foundation provide this resource for students to collect data and then use statistical methods to analyse the results. The activities require that students investigate the extent to which people follow the advice from the Department of Health, which recommends that everyone eats at least five portions...

This challenge, from Practical Action, requires students to design and build a model structure that will enable farmers to grow crops even in an area that may become flooded. A floating garden, built on a base of aquatic weeds, is a low cost and sustainable way of allowing people to grow vegetables. The resource...

Students work in teams to design and make a prototype device that can design and make a prototype of a simple device (to be sold in stores like B&Q) that will allow homeowners to remove water from their house during periods of flooding.

In this challenge the device will have to move 100ml of water from...

After learning about flooding, students consider the design problems caused by its early detection. Students are introduced to moisture sensors, and can build their own using the instructions provided or use a ready-made version. This is connected to the BBC micro:bit and used as an input device. After processing...

The network flow problem involves finding the optimum route through a flow network; a directed graph where each arc has a capacity and each arc receives a flow. Typical examples include: evacuation plans and delivery services. The problem involves students analysing the plan of a school canteen and deciding whether...

Using a huge wall map of the world, flower pots, compost and videos, children find out everything there is to know about the fruit they eat. They investigate where their fruit has travelled from, and what transport was used getting it to the UK. Children explore the different parts of fruit and compare the seeds of...

This lesson is designed to introduce students to the Apollo missions and set the scene for the Lunar samples by investigating the landing sites where some of the samples in the Lunar disk came from. Students will use Google Earth to explore the Apollo 15 landing site, finding out information about the samples...

This play explores how we can both under- and over-eat and what this does for our health. Set in India it looks at two groups of people, rich and poor, and how both have poor diets for very...

Aimed at older primary level, these resources help to put curriculum science in a real life context and provide many opportunities for working scientifically. They link to work on forces aiming to extend understanding to the application of forces used in sorting and recycling materials. Children investigate...

This unit looks at 'fracking', the extraction of shale gas by hydraulic fracturing, as an application of science and considers who has access to, and influence over, decision-making processes which determine what risks are acceptable, and who they...

In this lesson plan and associated presentation from CensusAtSchool, students are asked to remember how many frogs are on a slide when they have only had a few seconds to look at this. A student who has not been present is then asked to question the students about how many frogs were on the slide. Students will...

Produced by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in this activity students translate DNA sequences into a series of amino acids to discover which protein is coded for and its function.

Students are supplied with a worksheet with DNA sequences and a codon wheel to decode the codons into amino acids. The amino...

These post-16 lesson plans look at Darwin’s pigeon breeding experiments and how they revealed the biology of inheritance and selection. Students will:

• Compare natural and artificial selection and be able to critically explain the difference between the two.
• Explore how Darwin used selective...

From ARKive, these resources help students to learn about the Galapagos Islands, their biodiversity and conservation. Through a series of activities, students look at: the scientific history and importance of the Galapagos Islands; the species that inhabit the islands including the concept of endemic species; the...