This resource from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is a practical, classroom activity that allows the students to make a balloon model of a disease-causing bacterium. This illustrates its basic shape and structure. Students can choose from three bacteria species...

A balloon is being blown up by a person. Between blows, the person pauses. As time progresses the person takes longer pauses and shallower blows. At the end, the air is released from the balloon. The challenge is to graph the length of the balloon against time.

Balloon length video

A balloon provides a simple example of how a rocket engine works. The air trapped inside the balloon pushes out the open end, causing the balloon to move forward. The force of the air escaping is the “action”; the movement of the balloon forward is the “reaction” predicted by Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

This is one of a series of resources from the IET designed around the theme of the future of flight with the purpose of developing pupils knowledge and skills in engineering and mathematics. In this activity, pupils will make a balloon rocket and carry out timed tests to calculate the velocity of the balloon. The...

This STEM activity works to develop pupils understanding of how vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear. In this purposeful challenge, pupils will investigate how a balloon can be used as a simple speaker to amplify sound, by blowing up the balloon and listening to how a range of sounds travel...

The Big Picture on pages 10-11 of this issue of Catalyst shows scientists in Antarctica launching a balloon which will travel up through the atmosphere to a height of 34 km above the Earth’s surface. This balloon is part of NASA’s BARREL mission, probing the radiation belts which surround the Earth.

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In this activity, students consider the evidence for causal links between sugar consumption, obesity and disease. They then weigh up arguments for and against banning sugary drink sales to children.

Curriculum links include:

Key Stage Three:

*Working Scientifically: Analysis and evaluation –...

In this activity students work as researchers on a TV show and plan a report about the claim that sunbeds cause skin cancer.

Learning objectives:

*Use knowledge about UV light to explain the link between sunbeds and skin cancer.

*Understand how scientific evidence can support a claim.

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This article from Catalyst looks at the ageing process in bananas. As bananas age, spots develop on their skins. These contain fluorescent substances which can be seen with a UV torch.

The article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2014, Volume 25, Issue 2.

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This game gives learners practice in working with money, entering items onto a bank statement and calculating the balance.

This resource is part of the Nuffield Maths Level 1 Foundation resource collection.

This Free-standing Mathematics Activity from the Nuffield Foundation is designed as a game to give students practice in working with money, entering items onto a bank statement and calculating the balance. To play the game, cards are placed face down in a pile. Students then take turns to turn over a card, enter...

This resource uses the context of the INEOS TEAM UK America's cup base in Portsmouth for students to explore the factors surrounding, using and installing solar panels on the roof of the building.  It includes the modeling required to maximise the roof area that can be used for solar panels and the data anlysis...

This resource is based on two aspects of the design of bar codes used for products on sale in shops. The first aspect is that of a check digit and how it works; the second aspect is that of the actual design for the strips of numbers that make up bar codes. This...