In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Sue Nelson hears about the birth of an ocean in the Afar depression in the Horn of Africa. The continental crust is being ripped apart at a phenomenal rate – one metre every year over the last five years. In...

The Spode Group was a group of mathematics teachers and lecturers who were developing curriculum material in secondary mathematics which encourages the use of applying mathematics to practical problems.

This collection of resources includes problems for students in lower secondary schools through to those...

In this Bowland assessment task, students are required to design a sports bag for a sports company. The bag is in the shape of a cylinder. Students draw the net of the bag from the given dimensions and consider how the three pieces of the bag, the main body of the bag and the two circular ends, should be cut from a...

Chris Holmes is a sports technologist for sports equipment manufacturer Adidas. This Department for Education clip is useful in showing students how a career such as this relies on a background of STEM study. Chris describes how he specialises in the development of sports balls. His job is to investigate the best...

James and the team at the International Tennis Federation team design equipment to help beginners to pick up the techniques of the game easily. Their work also ensures that Murray, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic all compete fairly and Wimbledon wins are down to talent, not racket-type!

Tomorrow’s Engineers took...

This resource created by the IET is one of a series of resources designed to allow learners to use the theme of the men’s football World Cup to develop their knowledge and skills in design and technology. In this activity, learners will design a sports team logo.

The activity could be used as a one-off main...

This resource from the Nuffield Foundation provides simulated information regarding an invoice, phone bill and bank statement. Each document contains several errors and students will have to check the details carefully to establish the correct values. Copies of the invoice, phone bill and bank statement with gaps...

This resource, from the Maths Careers website, asks students to spot the shape in a series of fifteen images. The images include everyday objects, logos and landscapes. For each picture, students are asked to draw the outline of the shape they have spotted and, in the space provided, write the name and any known...

Students check for errors in a simulated invoice, phone bill and bank statement (there are several errors on each).

This resource is part of the Nuffield Maths Level 1 Foundation resource collection.

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how hikers and walkers could be unwittingly changing the landscape by spreading alien species; what it's like to work as a marine biologist in the Arctic in temperatures of minus 40°C; and exactly how...

This teamwork-based activity provides a quick introduction to a teacher-led discussion focusing on the spread of disease and the importance of water treatment in preventing epidemics. Students use post-it notes to sort diseases into those that are water-borne and those...

This resource contains ten instant maths ideas using spreadsheets to solve mathematical problems. Mathematical topics explored include: * solving equations to complete a think of a number puzzle * completion of magic squares * exploring different sequences * the ‘Rich Aunt’ problem * an exploration of cubic graphs...

This resource from SMILE contains 21 activities for using spreadsheets to solve mathematical problems. Teachers' notes give advice on appropriate ways of using the activity and identifying particular support students may need when using a spreadsheet.

The activities are:

Favourite colours...

This resource from Inquiry Maths states "a square fits into a circle better than a circle fits into a square" leading to a rich task exploring areas, ratios and percentages.

A square fits better in a circle than a circle fits in a square describes the prompt and suggests a variety of ways in...

On the left, a rectangle is given and the challenge is to construct a square to the right of it that has an equal area and sharing a common vertex with the rectangle. The construction must be...