Resources by CREST Awards

Silver award: Detecting drugs

Students research, and then try out, ways of detecting analgesic compounds in mixtures:

• Chemical tests for particular organic functional groups.

• Paper and/or thin-layer chromatography to separate and identify analgesic...

Silver award: Fraud detection using chromatography

In this project students use chromatography to detect forged cheques and other documents and various types of counterfeit goods.  They will also investigate the best solvents to extract the inks and run TLC plates in order to compare the inks from the same part of a document printed on different models of a printer...

Silver Award: Future Travel

 These materials look at three possible projects that relate to sustainable transport:

* Communications project - students gather information and produce a balanced view on the costs and benefits of using hydrogen as fuel for vehicles.

* Practical project - students investigate the factors that affect...

Silver award: Hit-and-run investigation

Students devise a procedure for investigating how mass and speed affect the length of a skid. They will need to find out what determines whether a skid leaves a skid mark, and what accident investigators can deduce from skid marks. They may like to find out how an anti-lock braking system (ABS)...

Silver award: how do fertilizers affect plant growth?

Despite the high rate of growth in rainforests the soil in these forests is poor in nutrients. The nutrients have been washed out of the soils by heavy rainfall. In this project, students are going to investigate how different kinds of compost and fertiliser affect the rate of growth of plants.

Silver award: how does cooking change pasta?

In this independent research project, students investigate how cooking pasta affects its properties and see if this is linked to how starch in pasta in altered during cooking. They can investigate the effect of...

Silver award: how steady is your hand?

In this independent research project students investigate the properties of materials, electric circuits and electronic devices in order to design, build and test a device to measure the steadiness of someone’s hand ...

Silver award: how well do sun creams protect against UV radiation?

Students investigate how well different sun creams and sun blocks protect against UV radiation from the sun and research:

• Information about the electromagnetic spectrum and radiation from the sun.
• Why UV radiation is damaging to...

Silver award: machine learning

This CREST Silver level resource pack focuses on Machine Learning, with a variety of project ideas enabling students to investigate machine learning in a real-life context, exploring innovative ideas and solutions for the future, such as:

• Machine learning in disease detection
• Self-driving car...

Silver award: make and test ceramic jewellery

For this project, students will use clay as their ceramic. They will design and shape beads and/or pendants to make a necklace or bracelet. They will investigate ways of finishing the clay – in other words, colouring it and protecting it. They will then carry out tests to see how strong their product is.