Published in 2008, this report from the TDA outlines the investigation into how professional development across Initial Teacher Training (ITT) and Early Professional Development (EPD) is manifested in secondary science teaching across England.

The...

This introduction to programming in Scratch uses a trivial example to demonstrate simple audio and animation. It is written for Scratch 1.4 but can be easily adapted for later versions. ...

This short practical guide shows how to implement a bubble sort algorithm in Scratch. The procedure is easy to follow, and can be used in conjunction with theory or unplugged activities to aid...

This simple game is an engaging way to extend learning in Scratch. It uses fairly simple scripts running in parallel to detect collisions and move sprites, which have been designed in the Scratch environment. It could be used a basis for other similar ‘scrolling’ games. 

This activity is an introduction to writing programs that can handle errors. It also helps students to understand number bases, by guiding them through the writing of a ‘base converter’ program.

Suitable for students throughout secondary computing, including those studying at an advanced level, this exercise introduces the Heap Sort and explores why it is more efficient than the Bubble Sort in another Scratch Patch article. Students learn about tree data structures, including the correct terminology for...

This game-writing activity using Scratch will bring back youthful memories for some! It provides...

This practical guide to creating a simple game is aimed at those new to programming with Scratch...

Combining some fundamental physics with trigonometry and computer programming, this guide helps students to create a simulation of the projectile motion of a cannon ball. The concepts are all briefly explained, and the program introduces some clever mathematics as well as game elements, such as collision detection...

This project, exploring basic encryption, is a useful introduction to data security as well as iterating through strings to manipulate them. The program create a ‘substitution cipher’, one of the most basic forms of encryption. It also demonstrates that, for more complex chained commands, Scratch becomes rather...

This visual mathematics project focuses on the beautiful images known as Julia Sets (named after French mathematician Gaston Julia). Students use a repeated iterations to explore the world of complex numbers, writing and amending a relatively complicated Scratch program. 

This Open University text was designed as a unit for undergraduate level physics courses. Unit 32 was part of the S102 course, which was last presented in 1989. Although high energy particle physics has advanced since this time, with larger particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider, the information...

From the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this resource explains the leading role played by UK scientists and engineers at universities, observatories and research council establishments in the search for gravitational waves. Gravitational wave detectors are expected to open up a new window on the...

From the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this brochure describes the leading role played by UK scientists and engineers at universities, observatories and research council establishments in the search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The UK's dark matter experiment, at Boulby Mine...

The introduction to this problem involves modelling a race from one tree to another, and the requirement to touch a fence on the way. The challenge is to determine the...