Since 1799 the Royal Institution has been introducing new technologies and teaching science to the general public.  Their vision is " A world where everyone is inspired to think more deeply about science and its place in our lives."  They use their iconic Christmas...

The Royal Institution's 2021 Christmas Lecture - Going Viral, will be broadcast on the BBC in late December. Although the specifics of the lectures are a closely guarded secret, STEM Learning have pulled together a collection of resources from the STEM Learning eLibrary that will support...

The Royal Institution's 2022 Christmas Lectures - Secrets of forensic science, were...

The Royal Institution's 2023 Christmas Lectures - The truth about AI, will take place in December 2023 and will be broadcast on the BBC later in the month. This collection of resources from the STEM Learning digital resource collection can support the themes addressed in this three lectures series presented by...

The Royal Society is a an independent scientific academy in the UK, dedicated to promoting excellence in science.

This collection of resources from the Royal Society contains a variety of activity types and themes, such as why a career in science is for me, inspiring scientists and climate change, and the...

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...