A Bridge too Many, from the Centre for Science Education, is a set of teaching materials which offer a cross-curricular approach to learning about engineering. The context for the activities is a challenge based on a large model bridge that has been pre-constructed using prefabricated components, with weak pins...

These materials are designed to teach students aged 11 to 14 about the variety of habitats worldwide and the diversity of species found in each habitat. The activity also highlights topics including interdependence, adaptation and how species evolve specialised features. Working in groups, students are allocated a...

This activity, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, follows the format of a ‘Dragon’s Den’ competition. It aims develop student’s understanding of responsible product development and how the principles of the circular economy can be applied to current business practice. Case studies of existing products are...

This learning resource is an introduction to programming with Python. Versions are included for Python 2.7 and Python 3. The fundamentals of programming are covered: • Arithmetic operations • Data types • Control flow As well as some more advanced techniciques including the use of: • Regular Expressions • Files •...

This resource, produced by ARKive, is designed to teach Key Stage Two children about the strategies animals adopt to survive winter in temperate zones and about the adaptations exhibited by animals in the polar regions. Children compare these strategies and identify similarities and differences in the ways animals...

This resource provides a selection of lesson plans, worksheets and teachers notes relating to animals including humans at Year Two. They include activities for discussing the stage of the human lifecycle, thinking about how children have changed since they were babies...

This cross-curricular computing / ICT activity helps children to understand decomposition. They choose a poem and create an animation using Scratch; this encourages them to think deeply about the poem, and to explore the tools available. Children break the poem into pieces (decomposition), then plan the animation...

In this resource learners will use Scratch, to debug and then improve a program to move Autosub6000 around the ocean floor, photographing samples found.   The remote movement will be controlled through a keyboard’s arrow keys initially and then the children will be challenged to create a program which will move...

This concept cartoon focuses on bacteria, infection and the immune system. Concept cartoons provide a new approach to teaching, learning and assessment in science, they feature cartoon-style drawings showing different characters arguing about everyday situations. They are designed to intrigue, to provoke discussion...

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 resource looks at how biomimicry enables engineers to take ideas from the natural world to develop new products and designs. The specific example of gecko tape is used to illustrate this. Students play a game of pairs where they need to match technology with the animal or plant which inspired its development....

With this resource, students develop observation skills by investigating the phenomenon of ‘mate-guarding’ in brine shrimp. Following a teacher-led discussion, students generate hypotheses. For example, one of the hypotheses may be that larger females pair with larger males.

These may be tested...

In this activity, students create colour images from satellite data. This allows them to study how different surfaces reflect different wavelengths of light, how coloured images are created using an RGB model, and how band combinations can be chosen to examine a particular landscape effectively.

Produced by the Wellcome Trust, this issue of the Big Picture explores some of the careers that are available to students who have studied biological science. It goes...

This resource pack from Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) focuses on the role of judgment in animal behaviour studies. It consists of:

*background information for teachers

* images of Canada goose goslings at various stages of development and images of seven of the behaviours of...