This paper, published in 2012, summarises...

breakthrough was published three times a year for science teachers between 1999 and 2001. The editor was Peter Ellis who gathered contributions from a wide range of authors. The aim was to provide a termly pack of resources on the history and nature of science and technology and the people who made the stories. The...

Introduction to the Grand Challenge resources

The report from the Children’s Learning in Science Project (CLIS) gives an account of a number of aspects of students’ ideas about energy including:

*Do students use ideas about energy spontaneously to help them interpret phenomena?

*When students are ‘cued’ that energy is involved in a situation,...

This Catalyst article looks at how scientists can use material recovered from archaeological sites to see how crops have been introduced to different countries over the history of farming. Three processes by which some plant material can be preserved are explained. The ratio of carbon isotopes from the collagen in...

Since the discovery of antibiotics, many people believe that the pathogenic microorganism threat to the population has been removed, with fatal infections and infectious diseases brought under control. This has discouraged research into drugs containing natural compounds such as essential oils. However, humans are...

This Catalyst article investigates the research into artificial photosynthetic systems.

With the world’s population ever-expanding, energy demand is expected to double by 2050 and triple by 2100. In only 200 years, mankind has squandered what nature has taken hundreds of millions of years to lay down as...

This Nuffield Primary Science Teachers’ Guide for teaching the Living Processes topic, to students aged 7-12, is divided into five chapters:

*Chapter 1: Introduction - covering useful strategies, the SPACE approach...

Protecting Your Head, from the Centre for Science Education, is a set of teaching materials which offer a cross-curricular approach to learning about engineering. The context for the activities is the design of head protection for snowboarders where the risk of injury...

Most people are all too familiar with the idea of animal parasites, including tape worms, ticks and lice. But did you know that plants can also act as parasites, exploiting resources from unwilling hosts? Rather than being rare anomalies, however, there are over 4000 known species of parasitic plants, with...

In this Catalyst article, Mike Follows describes the surprising range of thermometers available to scientists today.

Many physical properties of materials depend on temperature. Thermometers are vital for measuring body temperature. The body's biochemical reactions work best at 37°C and the body is in...

This Catalyst article looks at peatlands which usually conjures up images of bleak, boggy hillsides across Northern Europe, Russia and the USA. But peatlands are also found in the tropics. These currently act as a significant store of carbon, yet these valuable ecosystems are under threat; their disappearance could...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, the resources in this section help students to develop their skills in scientific writing. This involves familiarity with the kinds of text that are written by members of the scientific community, practice with writing...