In this topic, from the Association for Science Education, students learn about the many products obtained from local plants. The topic is designed to allow classes in schools across the world to exchange information about the ways in which their lives depend on plants. The topic also provides opportunities for...

This resource, aimed at primary level, contains many activities related to plants, habitats, food chains and recycling. It looks at the features of different habitats and compares the plants that grow in each. Children learn about the features of plants and how certain...

This resource from the European Space Agency is presented as eight activities which guides students to create an automatic plant watering system, suitable for use on a possible future colony on the planet Mars. Students have opportunities to use and develop their skills to plan, design and analyse various soil-...

Explore the world of seeds in these lesson plans and activities aimed at Year Two. Learn why plants disperse their seeds and the various clever ways in which they do this. Plant cress seeds and grow a bean using hydroponics – watch and record what happens to them. Using various art and design techniques, make and...

This resource provides a selection of lesson plans, worksheets and teachers notes relating to plants at Year Three. They include activities in which children find out about the parts of flowering plants and their functions, and investigate the conditions affecting plant growth and how water is transported in plants...

A Catalyst article about the use of remote telescopes and detecting cosmic rays. Giant telescopes that can be operated remotely are located in Hawaii and Australia and are known as the Faulkes telescopes.

These are available to students in the UK to do original research with, and enable the following...

This resource contains a series of lessons which are designed to extend students’ knowledge and understanding of plastics and plastic waste on a global scale. Linking to materials and their properties, the environment, recycling and design and technology, they contain investigations and activities aimed at both...

Produced by Solar Spark, this activity allows students to make their own plastic from vinegar and milk. Milk contains casein in a form that is soluble in water. Making the milk acidic by adding vinegar makes the casein insoluble so the milk separates into a solid and a liquid known as curds and whey. Removing the...

This is one of the 18 Background Books published for Stage II of the Nuffield Chemistry Sample Scheme. The books were highly illustrated and designed to be attractive. This book describes applications of chemistry to making plastics and explaining their properties.

There are 5 parts to this book:
*Part...

A Catalyst article discussing how polymers affect every day of people’s lives. With diverse characteristics and applications their usefulness can only be limited by human imagination. Due to polymers’ widespread and varied use a responsible and systematic recycling programme is both economically and environmentally...

Produced by The Centre for Industry Education Collaboration (CIEC), these resources help to put curriculum science in a real life context. In these activities, children test and classify plastics before investigating their thermal insulation and shock resistance properties. The children then design, make and test a...

This Salters’ Chemistry Course unit from the University of York Science Education Group covered:
* The preparation of plastics by polymerization.
* The importance of ethene as a source of plastics.
* The uses and properties of plastics.
* The use of...

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Scientists recently found plastics floating in some of the most remote and inaccessible seas in the world, just off the coast of Antarctica. Although it clearly looks ugly in such a pristine environment,...

This resource provides a set of videos of a practical investigation aimed at supporting working scientifically in the classroom and relating science to real world experiences, presented by Professor Brian Cox and Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock. In this video, Maggie joins a teacher demonstrating a plastics and...