A Catalyst article about Darwin's beetle collection - an early step in his scientific career. Beetle-collecting was something of a craze in the early 19th century; at the same time, scientific understanding of these creatures grew rapidly. The well illustrated article looks at Darwin's work in this field.

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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...

This poster, from the Science and Technology Facilities Council, celebrates 100 years since two scientists in the UK pioneered a technique for crystallography.

Crystallography uses x-rays to create a diffraction pattern to examine the atomic structure of crystals. The poster explains Bragg’s Law, which...

The initial task involves using factors of 12 and -12 to set up two points. Compasses are used to draw a circle that has the two points as its diameter. An interesting feature of the resulting...

A Catalyst article about how the scanning by an electron microscope of pollen grains shows up their structure, and can help scientists understand why some people suffer from an allergic reaction - hay fever. The article describes how the images were made and how they are used in scientific research.

This...

Published in 2006 by the Scottish Government, this report looks at the progress towards a Curriculum for Excellence. It was designed to present ideas and stimulate discussion between stakeholders in education within Scotland.

The Curriculum for Excellence considers how and what children and young people...

This animated clip explains how Mercury rotates in around 59 Earth days to rotate but only takes 88 Earth days to orbit the Sun (the length of its year). So Mercury spins three times for every two orbits, which means each Mercury day lasts for two Mercury years. This means, living on Mercury, you would celebrate...

The initial investigation uses an inductive formula and two initial values to derive a sequence that results in a series of fractions before returning to the initial two values of the sequence. A spreadsheet is provided that performs the calculations given in the inductive formula. This is helpful for both checking...

There is an initial investigation of geometric progressions where the interval between the first and second, and the third and fourth terms are given, with the challenge of discovering two possible values for the first term and associated common ratio. There are ten examples to work on to enable collaboration...

In this video, from Rolls-Royce, students can see what it is like to work in a company that develops and manufactures high technology products. The video includes comments and descriptions from a group of young people visiting Rolls-Royce. The video includes sections on: * The manufacture of hollow titanium fan...

A Godlike Heart is a short story about computational thinking, introducing the idea of using binary to represent different kinds of information. Set in ancient Mexico it follows the story of the kidnapping of and subsequent search for the daughter of a great “Jaguar Knight”, a general in the Mexican army.

It...

This resource from Ofsted accompanies the survey report Tackling the challenge of low numeracy skills in young people and adults, published in April 2011, and summarises the characteristics of good practice in adult numeracy tutors under the following headings...

Published by LSIS, this guide is intended for learning providers who want to help care workers develop better mathematics skills at work. The guide is divided into two parts. Part 1 identifies the mathematics that care workers use at work, offers an overview of the adult social care sector, considers attitudes to...

This report describes the findings of research carried out for the Wellcome Trust by the Centre for Education and Industry at the University of Warwick in 2002-2003.

The Wellcome Trust was seeking to establish how well existing A Level Biology courses meet the needs of modern biological sciences, the aims...

Produced in 2003, these performance descriptors for chemistry science subjects at AS and A2 levels were written to indicate the level of attainment characteristic of grades A/B and E/U boundary candidates across a series of assessment objectives. It was intended that they should be interpreted in relation to the...