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...

This learning pack provides many activities from across the curriculum, which are all linked to the topic of light. They all sit within the context of London, but may also be used by schools teaching outside the capital. The pack is designed so that you can pick and choose between the topics, which are:...

There is a minimum size of meteorite that will make it through the atmosphere of a planet (or the Moon) and impact on the surface. If the meteorite is any smaller than this, it will burn up on its journey through the atmosphere and be seen as a meteor or shooting star (obviously if the meteorite is bigger it will...

Jo Shien Ng works to develop more and more sensitive electrical components called 'avalanche photodiodes' used in everything from satellites that look at the Earth from space, to body scanners in hospitals and airports. She does this by applying an understanding of the behaviour of materials developed through...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). British Geological Survey scientists have completed the first full geological survey of Lake Windermere in the English Lake District since the Royal Navy surveyed it in the 1930s.

Among other things, the...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). In this recording, Richard Hollingham talks to expert seismologist Brian Baptie from the British Geological Survey, who uses musical software to find out if earthquakes are getting more frequent.

Another...

In this activity children explore how images are stored and communicated by computers (including robots and rovers). They learn how a picture is made up of pixels and how each pixel is coded for by a number code, which is then converted into an image. Children learn about Binary code and how it is used to represent...

Libby works at the UK Space Agency, in Swindon.  She works with scientists and industry to ensure that they can run experiments on the International Space Station.  Libby works alongside astronauts who will be running the experiments on the space station.  She leads a team to ensure that research can be performed...

Evidence from Cassini, a robot spacecraft, suggests that there are oceans of hot water on Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus. Might the oceans be home to alien life? In this activity students use their knowledge of the behaviour of water in its...

This careers pack, for primary schools, uses space as a context to highlight the importance of STEM subjects. The resource has been written to highlight some of the STEM career opportunities available so that students, teachers and school communities can discuss and explore, from an earlier age, the breadth of jobs...

You may have seen Maggie Aderin-Pocock presenting BBC's The Sky at Night, asking Jeremy Paxman to hold a torch while she described a lunar eclipse, or on the sofa of a breakfast television show or The One Show talking enthusiastically about science. You may not know that she has hung out of the back of military...

The Mars Safari Education Pack is designed to leave primary school children feeling like they’ve explored the Red Planet! Working in small groups, children design and build their own ExoMars rover, analyse ‘Martian’ soil samples, safely navigate the Rover across the surface of Mars and make a solar light that only...