Hold a ruler or speed of light indicator, to test your reaction times by working in pairs with one student holding the ruler at...

A sheet is shown containing six calculations that have been partially obscured by juice spilled on the sheet. The challenge is to work out what the calculations were, and their solutions.

This problem provides a gentle introduction to simultaneous equations. Three bags of shopping are shown: two have prices and one does not. The challenge is to find out the price of the final bag of shopping.

This article, by L. Chapman, published in June 2002,  presents a small-scale case study of science assessment for students with special educational needs. The discussion is based on the appropriateness of the assessments as a means of monitoring achievement and in setting targets. It is argued that National...

This activity, created for use by teachers and/or Environment Agency STEM Ambassadors with the help of a teacher, provides the opportunity for pupils to learn about the water cycle. Pupils are introduced to the water cycle by asking them to...

In this set of activities, children will learn about the water cycle and, in particular, how water in the soil contributes to the cycle and responds to changes in it.

Activities are:

• learning about the story of a snowflake to illustrate the water cycle
• investigating evaporation and...

A big idea in chemistry is the idea of how substances behave and change, including how we can explain changes in the air, land and ocean. It is important for children to learn about how water moves through the environment, connecting sources of water on land including oceans, rivers, lakes and puddles with water in...

Theory Into Practice, from the Nuffield Foundation, was published in the early 1970s when there were significant developments both in the style of science teaching in schools and in the arrangements for teaching education and professional development. The resource includes activities designed to help teachers to...

This edition of the Computing at School newsletter contains articles covering:

*Computing in the national curriculum

*Computational thinking in the classroom

Produced by Teachers TV, this short video is part of the Lesson Planning Pack series. It encourages primary school children to think about the items in a house that use electricity. It can be used as a lesson starter to stimulate thought and discussion about electricity in the household. Heather is late for work so...

These activities, from the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM) publication ‘Thinking for Ourselves’, provide a variety of contexts in which students are encouraged to think for themselves.

Activity 1: In the bag – More or less requires students to record how many more or...

This resource, produced by the Centre for Teaching Mathematics at the University of Plymouth, contains ten ‘puzzles to get the brain working!’

Each puzzle is designed to make students think laterally, consider the question carefully and not give the most obvious answer. The puzzles could be used as lesson...

These resources, produced by The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), have been designed to encourage distinctive ways of thinking and learning as part of the NCETM professional development package.

Analysing reasoning and...