This Catalyst article looks at the work of fire engineers whose aim is to minimise the threat of fire and to protect people when fire breaks out. The article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2014, Volume 24, Issue 4.

Catalyst is a...

This resource presents some real seismic data recorded before a volcanic eruption and allows students to locate some of the resulting earthquakes by use of graphs and maps.

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This video demonstrates how compressing a gas increases its temperature. A small piece of cotton wool is placed into the bottom of a narrow plastic tube. When the air is rapidly compressed by a piston, the air temperature increases and the cotton ignites. The 'fire piston' can be used to illustrates the transfer of...

Rory Hadden investigates how fires ignite, spread and how they can be extinguished. This research is then used to save lives by creating safer buildings for us to live and work in.

This Catalyst article looks at fireworks and their history, how they are made and set off, and what gives them their colours and effects. The basic chemistry used in fireworks is looked at and how they work once the fuse is ignited.

This article is from Catalyst: GCSE Science Review 2002, Volume 13, Issue 2...

A Catalyst article about the Wright brothers who made the first powered flight. Unlike the try-it-and-see methods used in many of the previous attempts, the Wrights approached the problem of flight in a scientific way and beat the competition. This article looks at the Wright brothers' research and the wing shapes...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how the famous White Cliffs of Dover could be made of fish poo (at least partially), why one researcher is so interested in dead whales, and why the Japan earthquake was so powerful and devastating....

In this video, Matt describes how he became a fisheries technical officer for the Environment Agency. His job is to monitor river habitats and fish populations, including improving the habitat and restocking fish after any pollution incidents.

The video could be used to introduce units of work including...

This Catalyst article describes how fish can help scientists to learn more about human biology. Understanding how human bodies work and what causes human disease is the key to future medical breakthroughs. Most discoveries in medical science are a result of experiments that cannot be performed on humans. Animal...

This resource, produced by SEPNet and Queen Mary University of London, uses Lego to represent the building blocks of matter. Different colour and size Lego bricks are assigned to protons, neutrons and electrons. Fusion is shown by joining bricks together and fission by breaking large collections of bricks apart....

This Catalyst article explores 'Biomodels', biological species which are increasingly well-understood and which have been chosen because they can help us to test new biological theories, particularly in the field of genetics.

This article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2....

Countries charge for planes to fly through their airspace even if the plane does not land. Different countries levy different charges, therefore plane companies consider a number of different routes and calculate the associated charges with each route. The formula used to fly over Europe is considered and an...

This challenge, from Practical Action, requires students to design and build a model structure that will enable farmers to grow crops even in an area that may become flooded. A floating garden, built on a base of aquatic weeds, is a low cost and sustainable way of allowing people to grow vegetables. The resource...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at why removing some man-made coastal flood defences might not be such a bad idea, what it is like studying gas exchange in the wilds of the Southern Ocean, and – in what could be the first case of '...

These videos highlight the problems caused by flooding in the developing world, and show how Practical Action works with local communities to help reduce the impact of future floo...