This article from the CS4FN Magazine, looks into the ideas surrounding Intellectual Property, copyright, copyleft and patents and how these all apply (or don't) in the realm of computer programming and software. These ideas can be used as...

Purpose: Students may not have time in lessons to obtain sufficient data to give them the ‘big picture’ of their chosen context. This is often the case in ecological or pollution investigations where they can only sample a ‘snap shot’ of the situation. Providing access to a published database of results can provide...

This booklet consists of 16 introductory programming challenges, some of the challenges also provide further extension challenges, for every challenge there is a "Self Review" section which asks students to comment on whether they managed to complete the task successfully, whether they had any errors initially and...

This resource consists of an information sheet detailing various methods for validating user input in Python, these come in the form of a table consisting of some code in one column and an overview of what the corresponding code does. There is an associated zip file with code examples in it and a presentation which...

Produced in 2015, these resources look at the development of encoding messages and how technology and science has developed to allow us to keep messages secure. Looking at unintuitive quantum properties of light, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal and entanglement, students will see how keys can be shared to ensure...

Purpose: QR codes are a simple way of providing access to information. The code is a pattern of printed rectangles that can be scanned with the camera in a mobile device to link to either web sites or other sources of information. They can be used to enhance practical science by providing reminders of how to...

This booklet is part of the ‘Innovations in Practical Work’ series published by the Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme (SEP). Radiation is all around us and is part of our everyday life. Much of the radiation that bombards us comes from natural sources, though we are...

This resource details an activity where students set up their own network of Raspberry Pis in a classroom, using another machine as their server. As with all of these sorts of activities, it is highly recommended to work through the whoole activity first, downloading the required software ahead of a lesson and...

From the LSIS, these materials cover two sessions designed to take students through the basic principles of manipulating and solving equations. The learners work through building an equation, checking the equation and solving the equation. They are then asked to create their own equation and swap it with a partner...

Purpose: Digital tools have radically changed the way that fieldwork data can be recorded and saved. There is no longer a need for clipboards and pencils in the field, as digital technology can record details of observations, times, location and images within a single app. This data can be saved to an online data...

This magic trick from the Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN) team at QMUL is based on a ‘self-working trick’. It includes a set of instructions which, so long as the commands are followed, works every time. It is, therefore, an algorithm.

The trick involves playing cards – the actual value of the cards is not...

A resource aimed at the various GCSE Specifications for Computing. Activities are broken down into 14 stages and will require students to create a Relation Database...