This activity can be used to explore the relationship between shape and hydrodynamics (resistance).

Curriculum links include aerodynamics, resistance, forces, buoyancy and thrust. There are a number of useful links to...

From the Centre for Science Education, and with support from Shell Education services, these materials help children to investigate forces and motion.

A wide variety of buggies can be constructed and powered by a jet of air escaping from a balloon. Such a vehicle may run for a distance of 20 to 30 metres...

This resource from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is a practical, classroom activity that allows the students to make a balloon model of a disease-causing bacterium. This illustrates its basic shape and structure. Students can choose from three bacteria species...

This resource focusses on making a balloon powered car to learn about forces. Presenting pupils with the question, 'How do things move?' pupils explore aeroplanes and cars, learning about ‘thrust’. Through designing their own balloon-powered car, children will explore how they can increase and decrease thrust,...

A balloon provides a simple example of how a rocket engine works. The air trapped inside the balloon pushes out the open end, causing the balloon to move forward. The force of the air escaping is the “action”; the movement of the balloon forward is the “reaction” predicted by Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

This STEM activity works to develop pupils understanding of how vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear. In this purposeful challenge, pupils will investigate how a balloon can be used as a simple speaker to amplify sound, by blowing up the balloon and listening to how a range of sounds travel...

The Big Picture on pages 10-11 of this issue of Catalyst shows scientists in Antarctica launching a balloon which will travel up through the atmosphere to a height of 34 km above the Earth’s surface. This balloon is part of NASA’s BARREL mission, probing the radiation belts which surround the Earth.

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In this activity, students consider the evidence for causal links between sugar consumption, obesity and disease. They then weigh up arguments for and against banning sugary drink sales to children.

Curriculum links include:

Key Stage Three:

*Working Scientifically: Analysis and evaluation –...

In this activity students work as researchers on a TV show and plan a report about the claim that sunbeds cause skin cancer.

Learning objectives:

*Use knowledge about UV light to explain the link between sunbeds and skin cancer.

*Understand how scientific evidence can support a claim.

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This article from Catalyst looks at the ageing process in bananas. As bananas age, spots develop on their skins. These contain fluorescent substances which can be seen with a UV torch.

The article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2.

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This resource uses the context of the INEOS TEAM UK America's cup base in Portsmouth for students to explore the factors surrounding, using and installing solar panels on the roof of the building.  It includes the modeling required to maximise the roof area that can be used for solar panels and the data anlysis...

This resource looks at the concept of a centre of mass, for a rotating body, or barycentre, using the principals of moments.  An demonstration activity is suggested, using tennis balls secured together will string.  A video linked to this activity is performed on the International Space Station, by ESA Astronaut,...