Plastics: How does washing affect the number of fibres released from a fleece?

This resource provides a set of videos of a practical investigation aimed at supporting working scientifically in the classroom and relating science to real world experiences, presented by Professor Brian Cox and Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock. In this video, Maggie joins a teacher demonstrating a plastics and sustainability classroom activity, including set-up, demonstration and the experiment being taught with a secondary age science class.

In the second video, we visit Catherine Conway from GoUnpackaged to find out about their work designing solutions to single-use plastics, before visiting Professor Rachael Rothman at the University of Sheffield to find out about her research into sustainable processes and clean energy systems. The second and third videos have a focus on the skills required to work in these areas and offer young people an insight into which subjects or careers they may wish to pursue later in school and beyond. These resources could be a useful tool for careers advisors and form tutors to use during careers discussions. There are accompanying resources available to download.

This activity is based on an original activity, designed by the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk), for the Terrific Scientific series, who have kindly agreed to its use in the Royal Society Brian Cox School Experiments.

This resource has been provided by the Royal Society.

Classroom experiment

Catherine Conway from GoUnpackaged

Professor Rachael Rothman at the University of Sheffield