A Catalyst article describing how glow worms and other insects emit light by bioluminescence. All over the world, on land and in the sea, living things have been making light for millions of years. From the glow of the sea on a dark night due to myriads of phytoplankton, to the dance of the male fireflies trying to...

This Catalyst article looks at the discovery of the Arctica Islandica, a mollusc which carries a record of past environments in the banding of its shell. In 2006, scientists collecting material from the seabed off the north coast of Iceland found some clam shells which remarkably were found to have come from...

A Catalyst article about the Hubble telescope exploring a barred spiral galaxy, known as NGC1672 in the astronomers’ New General Catalogue. The image was made by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and was released in April 2007. NGC 1672 is situated 60 million light years away, in the constellation of Dorado. The...

A Catalyst article explaining how new data suggests that it is very unlikely that life ever existed on Mars. When the presence of water was confirmed a few years ago, there was a lot of speculation that at least simple life forms had once lived there as water is essential for every known living organism. The latest...

This special space:UK issue from the UK Space Agency, celebrating 50 years of the UK’s expansion into space, looks into stories about the first British satellite, and its demise, and the latest of innovative ideas such as a European spacecraft designed to fly closer to the sun than ever before. Articles in this...

This engineering resource, produced by Mathematics in Education and Industry (MEI) for the Royal Academy of Engineering, asks the question: how can a camera, mounted on a helicopter, be used to track the location of a ground-based object? A number of discussion ideas are considered before using 2D and 3D...

Teachers often battle with students’ inability to make links between their learning across subjects. For example: in science, after collecting data from an experiment, students are required to draw a graph of their results and describe what the graph shows. As as soon...

This activity from the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) Primary magazine takes the issue of space junk as its central theme. There are opportunities to develop and understanding of time and time zones, probability, mass, speed and large numbers relating to distances.

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This book from the Schools Council discusses the aims of the Mathematics for the Majority project and includes contributions from teachers who were actively concerned with teaching mathematics at this standard. It is written in two parts:

This booklet provides twelve case studies from STEM Knowledge Networks. These were projects supported by the National STEM Learning Centre and Network in partnership with the National Centre for the Excellence in Teaching Mathematics (NCETM). Schools were required to...

This STEM Learning magazine aimed at all primary teachers contains articles and interviews looking at ideas, hints and tips for teaching science, mathematics, design and technology and computing at primary level. Articles include: 

• How to effectively teach mathematics skills for science to increase...

Successful scientists require a broad range of skills and attributes in order to achieve, and have recognition of, their successes. Central and pivotal to these skills is the mastery of number and a proficiency in mathematics. In science lessons students frequently rely...

The Study Plus handbook from the National Strategies is a general guide to Study Plus for school leaders, mathematics subject leaders and teachers of the Study Plus classes.

Section one covers the rationale behind...