Produced by ARKive, these materials include a series of activities that introduce children to the plants and animals of the temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest (USA). Children conduct a hands-on investigation of the living things in a small local ecosystem, catalogue their findings and then compare their...

Robert is a temperate horticultural curator at the Eden Project.  Curriculum links could include biodiversity, human impact on the environmental science, photosynthesis, limiting factors, plants, ecosystems, biomes, nutrient cycling, habitats, interdependence....

This Catalyst article looks at how our knowledge of the human genome has increased greatly during the last 10 years, and genome sequencing techniques have become much faster. On 26th June 2000 it was announced that scientists had completed a first draft of the human genome, the DNA instructions for making a human...

Several different treatments are used to autolyse yeast cells. The viability of the autolysed yeast is then tested by: plating out on agar; testing for dehydrogenase activity; microscopic examination with methylene blue.

In this activity, students investigate the three main types of memory - sensory, short-term and long-term. An explanation is given for each one and linked to a memory experiment. Students are also given five memory tasks to complete which include looking at factors that affect peoples' memories and ways in which to...

These resources were created as part of the BioMedia Meltdown Competition, which is an annual event open to all young people aged 10-14.

Unsung Scientists

14 fact sheets featuring true stories of underrepresented natural historians & life scientists for use in a portraiture...

This Medical Research Council (MRC) resource discusses the brain - the most complex and least understood organ in the human body. It controls all of its activities, from breathing and listening to thinking and moving. MRC researchers are working to understand more about how the normal brain and the senses work, as...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the ‘Big Picture’ explores issues around biology and medicine.​

This resource includes...

This practical activity allows children to visualise how Sickle Cell Anaemia can affect blood circulation around the body. Children walk or run around a classroom-sized simulation of the human body, carrying red blood cells away from the heart and blue blood cells back...

This resource, aimed at primary level, helps to develop an understanding of pollination and how flowers attract insects. Linked to the topics of lifecycles, plants and living things and their habitats, it provides an opportunity to identify and name wild flowers, whilst investigating the frequency of different...

This report was intended to provide a longer term perspective on changes taking place in students’ understanding over the compulsory school years. The topic of air was chosen on the basis both of its importance throughout school science and its accessibility to students...

This resource provides a lesson about digestion in humans, linked to curriculum objectives. It is structured around a series of captivating, educational films. The films highlight the structure and function of the key organs of the digestive system, focusing on what happens at each stage on food's incredible...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how scientists plan to measure the Earth's magnetic field from space, why one researcher is in the frozen town of Churchill in northern Canada, and how the Chernobyl disaster still affects Northern...

This Catalyst article investigates the Ebola outbreak. Defeating the outbreak of the viral disease Ebola in 2014-15 required great medical effort. Antidotes and vaccines are under development.

The article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1.

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A Catalyst article about deciding right from wrong in biology. Modern science raises many ethical questions. How these questions can be answered either ethically or by coming to a personal decision is discussed. How ethical frameworks can be used to address ethical questions is applied to the case of genetically...