This More Maths Grads resource, from the Maths Careers website, investigates the maths used in transport and is based on the travelling salesman problem.

Students are given a table containing information on the cost of air travel between nine different cities and asked to plan a route that visits each...

The materials in this resource are from the Secondary National Strategy ‘Progressing to Level 6 and beyond in science’ project. They were intended for science teachers who are focusing on helping their students in developing skills in aspects of ‘How science works’ –...

This resource provides Key Stage Three National Strategy training materials to run a day session with science teachers to help them develop an understanding of the key elements of Assessment for Learning and how it might affect their practice.

Made up of two complementary activities, these resources from the CS4FN team go deeper into theory about search algorithms.

The first activity involves the teacher leading a magic trick using some normal playing cards. In the subsequent explanation of the trick, students are asked to consider the pseudocode...

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...

This training resource from the National Strategies considers the causes of poor behaviour for learning as well as staff behaviour and its impact on learning. The aim is for teachers to: • Develop an understanding of how both student and teacher emotions can impact on learning. • Develop some strategies to avoid...

This unplugged activity, from the CS4FN team at Queen Mary University of London, helps learners to understand variable assignment and operations. They use the idea of variables as boxes as the basis of a group activity, developing their use of logical thinking to trace variables through programs.

The...

This unplugged activity from Peter McOwan and Paul Curzon mingles computer science with biology. A group activity is used that mimics the firing of neurons within the brain. These trigger other neurons to fire – these can be compared to AND gates in logic circuits.

The ‘brain in a bag’ kits used in the...

The Youth Grand Challenges is a new STEM competition that aims to inspire students aged 11-to-19.  This resource provides a selection of ideas for research or practical projects on the subect of the spread of disease.

Curriculum links include pathogens, bacteria, epidemics, pandemics, malaria, water borne...

This is a classroom-based activity from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute that allows students to explore the features of two bacterial pathogen genomes. The aim of this activity is to highlight the role of different genetic components in two closely related subspecies of Salmonella enterica, and to identify how...

There are two parts to the DIY Dendrometer resources: 

Part A focusses on how trees grow and their role within both the carbon cycle and the water cycle. Learners are encouraged to take part in a citizen science project which involves creating and installing a DIY...

Using a spreadsheet as a grid of 'pixels', this computing activity teachers how 1's and 0's can store image data. The classroom exercises use images with increasing pixel resolution, looking at how this affects the clarity of the image. Moving from black-and-white images, the students then use grids of colour...

The materials in this resource are from the Secondary National Strategy ‘Progressing to Level 6 and beyond in science’ project. They were intended for science teachers who are focusing on helping their students in developing skills in effective group talk.

This challenge, from Practical Action, requires students to design and build a model structure that will enable farmers to grow crops even in an area that may become flooded. A floating garden, built on a base of aquatic weeds, is a low cost and sustainable way of allowing people to grow vegetables. The resource...

This resource suggests a number of investigations into bee behaviour which can be used to:

• develop an understanding of the interdependence of organisms in an ecosystem, including food webs and insect pollinated crops
• consider the importance of insect pollination in human food security
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