The joy and challenge of building ‘cheap and cheerful’ sensors has a wide appeal to adults as well as children. It also opens a wide number of links to aspects of the mathematics, science, computing, design and technology, and engineering curricula, supporting scientific investigation and discovery. These...

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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...

Through energy use, each UK home creates around six tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Much of this is the result of electricity generation. In this activity, from the Centre for Science Education and the Comino Foundation, students look into the advantages and disadvantages of the Smart Meter – an innovative device...

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...

This hands-on classroom activity from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for Key Stage Two and Key Stage Three students aims to aid in the teaching of respiratory health and hygiene topics. This interactive, practical activity demonstrates how microbes, such as bacteria...

This series of activities from NASA take a mathematical approach to looking at the Sun-Earth system. They are intended as supplementary problems for students looking for additional challenges in mathematics and physical science from age 11 to 16 years.

The problems were created to be authentic glimpses of...

Produced by NASA, this activity contains information about the planets of the solar system. The main activity allows students to create an eight-cube paper puzzle of the solar system. In assembling the puzzle, students colour images of the Sun, planets and asteroids. In addition to puzzle pieces, the kit contains...

From NASA, this activity helps students see the relative distances from the sun of the planets in our solar system. Astronomers refer to the distance from the sun to the Earth as one 'astronomical unit' or AU. This activity demonstrates an easy way to calculate the distances of the other planets from the sun and...

Using the context of what it would be like for a child with hearing difficulties in school, children develop a set of survey questions to assess the noisiest places in school and work in small groups to survey the site and map their findings.

This resource describes how students can investigate the sugars in food and drink. Background information is provided about complex and simple carbohydrates.

In the first activity, students use clinistix to test for glucose. The second worksheet describes the use of Benedict's Reagent to test for reducing...

This series of activities from NASA are based on a weekly series of space science problems distributed to teachers in the US, from 2004 to 2010. They were intended for students looking for additional challenges in the mathematics and physical science curriculum, from ages 9 to 19 years.

The problems were...

This series of activities from NASA take a mathematical approach to looking at space weather. They are intended as supplementary problems for students looking for additional challenges in mathematics and physical science from age 11 to 19 years.

The problems were created to be authentic glimpses of modern...

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...