This practical activity uses a simple and convenient model of the real environment in order to demonstrate the principles of random sampling and how to estimate biodiversity. Students use different coloured sugar balls to represent different species in order to put Simpson's Diversity Index to the test, which takes...

In this activity, students explore the miss-match between real and perceived risk by exploring the risks of dying unexpectedly from various causes. Starting from known fears and comparing them with real-life data, students can recognise that these fears are often unfounded. Students have the opportunity to learn...

This resource considers how pollution from copper mines affects growth of plants, including a data analysis activity and a practical. The resource aims to address aspects of working scientifically.

The materials...

A Catalyst article about a Kenyan scientist who is searching for better treatments for malaria, a disease which kills more than a million people in Africa each year. The article also explains some of the challenges of doing science in Africa, where funding is low. Often the illness shows a remarkable ability to...

A Catalyst article about ants. A colony consists of hundreds, even thousands, of ants working diligently and cooperatively, perhaps to kill and carry a large prey item, build a large nest structure or develop and use road-like networks for foraging. Collectively, colonies of social insects can do amazing things and...

This activity is designed to enable students to be able to gain an understanding of how a human arm bends due to muscular contraction, to understand that a robot arm can use contraction or rotation to achieve movement and to understand that shape memory alloys can revert back to a previous shape when heated. Robot...

Dallas Campbell talks about how bras require engineering design to enable them to be both comfortable and supportive. He explains how a bra manufacturer...

This activity highlights...

Within this lesson students will learn how cellulose fibres are derived from wood and grasses and converted into paper. Students will understand the ecological issues in the manufacture and recycling of paper/board.

This lesson resource helps students to understand how designers need to reflect cultural and society issues in the design of products and consider wider issues. Students will understand the impact culture and society has on its design by looking at a specific products and completing analysis studies. This resource...

In this activity students use a smartphone to determine the precise amount of copper in an aqueous solution of nitric acid. Students collect comparative values of different copper-solutions with special apps to produce a diagram and estimate the amount of copper, based on the Lambert-Beer Law that explains that the...