In this activity, students assemble a simple electric circuit. This develops understanding of how electric circuits function.

In this activity, students assemble a variety of different switches from commonly available items. This develops understanding of how switches are used, electrical conduction and how electric circuits function.

In celebration of its founder, Fritz Schumacher’s centenary year Practical Action have created Small Is...Challenge. Schumacher’s philosophy was based on the idea that even a small change can have a big impact on people’s lives. The challenge for students is to look at technologies from the last 100 years and...

This is one of a series of resources to support the use of the BBC micro:bit.

In this activity pupils will make use of the BBC micro:bit to design and create a programmable system that can control the temperature and soil moisture levels in a ‘smart’ greenhouse. They will analyse a design brief and design...

Aimed at primary aged students, this STEM project provides a real-life context to explore the health and environmental problems faced by the 3 billion people globally who cook on open fires or traditional cooking stoves. Children are introduced to a family in Nepal and learn about indoor air pollution from their...

This teaching resource is presented in four stages:

Stage One - Finding out about the problem. In stage one pupils find out more about spacesuits, how they work and why people need them to survive. They also find out more about the challenge to test a series of materials to...

This Practical Action resource presents a fun hands-on and brains-on challenge for Key Stages Two to Five.

The problem:...

Stop the spread is a new STEM challenge for students aged 7 to 16. Highlighting the global issue of infectious disease students design, build and test a model of a hand washing device and produce educational materials for children in Kenya to encourage hand washing. It is accredited for the British Science...

Linked to this series of resources on designing and making a car, this activity evaluates the performance of the vehicle previously manufactured by the pupils. It involves recording the time taken by each vehicle to go down a slope. This can be converted into the speed of the vehicle. It could be used at key stage...

In this lesson aimed at lower primary, children find out about the uses of light bulbs, other than providing light. Children work scientifically observing, comparing and contrasting the features of different light bulbs and sorting them into groups according to similarities and differences. They then work as ‘light...

Using the context of the well known story of the Three Little Pigs, pupils are introduced to the concept of the materials life cycle. A presentation aids learning about different building materials and how waste is created but can also be reduced. In the activity, pupils are invited to design recycled house ideas...

This activity looks at water consumption on a local and global scale. Students learn about the main water contaminants and various methods of purification and the role of engineers and their approach to design challenges. The resource aims to inspire an interest in water conservation and to introduce students to...

This resource focusses on exploring shape, nets, wheels and axles. This activity uses pupil’s prior knowledge of nets to make a base for a vehicle. It then introduces the use of axles and wheels to enable the car to move. It could be used at key stage 1 to develop understanding of the use of axles and wheels in...

From Practical Action, this challenge asks students to design a simple wind turbine capable of lifting a cup off the floor to bench height. The winning team will be the one producing a machine that lifts the most weight. The resource includes an instruction sheet, wind turbine images, links to videos and...

This topic from Siemens designed for primary aged pupils, uses the context of long distance communications to get them thinking about how scientific ideas are used to develop solutions to challenges and how technology is about comparing and evaluating different solutions.

• Ways of communicating...