In this resource, students use their STEM skills to help them design and build a model of a flood- proof house. Activities to help them with their design include testing materials (for strength and absorbency) and structures. Set on a fictitious island coping with the devastating effects of flooding caused by...

Becta was the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology in education. It was established in 1997 and closed in March 2011. Becta provided leadership to embed the effective use of technology and provided rigorous research to evaluate the impact of...

This KS2 resource looks at the importance of bees as pollinators and explores some of the threats they face. The activities are based around the work of ‘real world’ scientists in organisations such as Fera.

Activities include:

Pollination roleplay...

This play looks at how an increase in the demand for meat can affect tropical rainforests far away. It explores some of the consequences for; animals and plants living in these areas, farmers and our planet.  

Great for use in an assembly or in class, when learning about rainforests, healthy eating and...

This report from Ofsted looks at low level classroom disruption. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) raised concerns about low-level disruption in schools in his Annual Report 2012/13. As a consequence, guidance to inspectors was tightened to place greater emphasis on this issue in routine inspections. In addition...

This document, published by SCORE (Science Community Representing Education), provides guidance to primary schools on the resources needed to carry out practical work, to ensure that all children receive a well-rounded science education. The benchmarks show the levels of resourcing that SCORE considers necessary to...

This short animation film joins Bepi, as she prepares to embark on a space mission to Mercury. Bepi explores a range of scientific facts and gets pupils thinking about all the things we don’t know about mercury. This video would be well placed at the start of a lesson researching a planet like Mercury. This video...

The best teaching draws on the best evidence. 

Amid increasing calls for evidence-based practice in classrooms, teachers’ lives are usually too busy for them to comprehensively access and implement the best evidence we can find emerging from education research.

Best Evidence Science Teaching for...

The Beyond 2000 report was the outcome of a seminar series initiated by Rosalind Driver and Jonathan Osborne at King’s College London. The series was funded by a grant from the Nuffield Foundation. There were four closed seminars and two open seminars. The report was edited by Robin Millar and Jonathan...

Looking to discuss the big, contestable questions in STEM? This collection of resources from The Economist Educational Foundation supports students to understand how the scientific and technological processes of the modern world are intertwined with political decisions and ethical calculations. They help develop...

This report, commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, evaluates Big Picture, its free publication on bioscience, and explores ways in which it could be developed. It was hoped that this summary of the main findings would be of use to other organisations developing materials for teachers and students, particularly those...

Simple and more advanced historical data sheets of survey data submitted by schools in previous years that can be used to answer statistical questions such as 'In which year did classes report the lowest number of starlings?' or 'Did we see more or fewer of each species than the average numbers from last year?'...

These activities, aimed at primary children, link to aspects of design and technology and literacy. Children follow recipes to make a variety of food for birds including pine cone lardy seed feeders, suet nut log and edible pictures.

This activity is part of the...

Aimed at primary, this resource provides activities which support aspects of literacy, art and D&T in the context of the identification of birds. Children follow instructions to colour, cut and fold templates to make ‘bird snappers’ for thirteen different birds.

The resource also includes a blank poster...