This is one of a series of extended units from the Association for Science Education and the Design and Technology Association, to provide in-depth coverage of a topic or an area of the curriculum. This unit covers the use of energy management systems in buildings focusing on the students’ own school. It provides a...

From the National Strategies, these documents give advice and guidance on delivering a successful science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curriculum enrichment and enhancement programme. The documents look at planning, implementing and monitoring an enrichment programme as well as how to make sure...

The resources in this collection look at whole-school issues in managing and teaching triple science. They include guidance and case studies for teachers and managers on implementing triple science, curriculum planning, identifying and inspiring students to take triple science, raising attainment, and collaborative...

In this video from Osiris Educational Bill Rodgers discusses his...

These technical briefs focus on manufacturing on a small-scale. It is an important livelihood for many people in the developing world and businesses are usually run by a family or a small group within the same community.

Technical briefs are documents produced by Practical Action which are freely available...

This collection of posters are themed around ‘Manufacturing the Future’. The posters can be used to help inform students about the cutting-edge technologies and exciting careers available in UK manufacturing. Topics include: * Astrium - space engineering * True Snowboards - snowboard design and production *...

This field study encourages students to investigate the vegetation in a lowland heathland habitat and to use a GPS unit to map habitat fragments. Students could also make management decisions, deciding where to place habitat corridors to help prepare for the possible effects of climate change.

Four...

This film, from Twig World, looks at how the oceans can be mapped. Charting the waters around the Scottish island of Orkney was a pivotal moment in maritime mapping. But a reliance on outdated maps places modern ships in danger. The key points made in the film are: •Before mapping of the sea floor began, hazards...

Produced by Solar Spark, this activity allows students to model the energy changes happening inside a photovoltaic cell. In a solar cell, electrons move to make an electrical current. The electrons act like the marbles in a marble run.

Marbles at the top of the run flow downhill through the run to the...

In order to understand the orbits of planets, comets and other celestial bodies, it is necessary to examine the principles of how gravity, and the velocity of an object, interact to produce an orbit. It is a common misconception among students that planetary orbits are circular. This practical activity gives a...

This activity puts speed-time graphs in a space context by looking at the elliptical orbits. 

In order to understand the orbits of planets, comets and other celestial bodies, it is necessary to examine the principles of how gravity, and the velocity of an object, interact to produce an orbit. It is a common...

This Catalyst article looks at Marie Curie, who discovered two radioactive elements and showed that radioactivity was a property of atoms, not compounds. Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes, the only woman to have done so. She is still the only person to have won awards in both Physics and Chemistry. The article...

Tom Harts is a marine biologist at the Zoological Society of London. This Department for Education clip illustrates the importance of mathematics in biology and provides an insight into a zoological career. Tom describes how he collects data during field trips in Antarctica which he then analyses back in London. He...

Mark Richards is a scientist and a DJ (DJ Kemist). He was born in Nottingham in 1970 to parents who had emigrated from Jamaica and remembers successfully 'battling with the boffins' at his comprehensive school, often coming top in chemistry.

Following a degree in chemistry, he has worked (getting a PhD along...

A Catalyst article about the idea of life on Mars. Scientists involved with the Mars Express mission aim to find out more and will try to establish if there ever has been life on Mars. The article looks at the miniature devices that they will employ on the mission. 

This article is from Catalyst: GCSE...