World Rivers Day - 22nd September 2024

This list highlights a number of resources that could be used for by different subject areas for different age groups on World Rivers Day.  The theme of rivers covers a wide range of STEM topics from building bridges, harnessing their energy to generate electricity, to their importance in terms of the provision of fresh water to humans and to wildlife.

For pupils aged 5 to 11 there is the 'River Crossing' activity which asks pupils to solve a problem using logic and a hands on engineering challenge to build a bridge from spaghetti.  

There is another hands on engineering activity for 11 to 14 year olds which introduces the use and importance of 'Rolling bridges'.  

From an environmental point of view there are a number of activities such as 'Where have the fish gone?' for 11 to 14 year olds or activity 801 in the 'Science and Technology in Society 8' resource for 14 to 16 year olds, which could be linked to the video of the 'Fisheries technical officer' talking about his job. 

For 14 to 16 year olds there is the 'Model boat' activity which involves a mathematical calculation using the speed of a boat and the speed of the river to determine where the boat will arrive on the opposite bank.

Also suitable for this age group and older students is the Catalyst article 'Water Power: the Micro-Hydro revolution' looking at how electricity can be generated on a small scale by rivers.

The last three resources in the list focus on the river Thames and offer a series of lessons on various aspects of the river: Bridging the river, Taming the river, and using the context of the river to look at various physics topics such as water pressure and simple machines such as pulleys and levers.