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...

In this lesson, students devise their own flood warning device and create a technical brief for an international audience using recognised circuit symbols. They also consider how people both here and in Nepal can best prepare for floods. Heavy monsoon rains can devastate communities in Nepal. The severe flooding...

Students work in teams to design and make a prototype device that can design and make a prototype of a simple device (to be sold in stores like B&Q) that will allow homeowners to remove water from their house during periods of flooding.

In this challenge the device will have to move 100ml of water from...

After learning about flooding, students consider the design problems caused by its early detection. Students are introduced to moisture sensors, and can build their own using the instructions provided or use a ready-made version. This is connected to the BBC micro:bit and used as an input device. After processing...

Using a huge wall map of the world, flower pots, compost and videos, children find out everything there is to know about the fruit they eat. They investigate where their fruit has travelled from, and what transport was used getting it to the UK. Children explore the different parts of fruit and compare the seeds of...

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 science, design technology, engineering and mathematics. 

In this activity pupils calculate the amount of energy needed to launch a space...

This lesson is designed to introduce students to the Apollo missions and set the scene for the Lunar samples by investigating the landing sites where some of the samples in the Lunar disk came from. Students will use Google Earth to explore the Apollo 15 landing site, finding out information about the samples...

This play explores how we can both under- and over-eat and what this does for our health. Set in India it looks at two groups of people, rich and poor, and how both have poor diets for very...

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
...

Aimed at older primary level, these resources help to put curriculum science in a real life context and provide many opportunities for working scientifically. They link to work on forces aiming to extend understanding to the application of forces used in sorting and recycling materials. Children investigate...

This resource from Physicists in Primary Schools (PIPS) supports the teaching of forces and springs at Key Stage Two.

A presentation introduces springs and explores the elastic and inelastic properties of materials. A whole class activity focuses on applying different forces to 'stretchimals' (stretchy toy...

In this activity, students investigate what is meant by fuel poverty. This could be used as a starter activity in mathematics or design and technology, with a focus on economic reasons for the development of sustainable power sources. Using the slides as stimulus...

Produced by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in this activity students translate DNA sequences into a series of amino acids to discover which protein is coded for and its function.

Students are supplied with a worksheet with DNA sequences and a codon wheel to decode the codons into amino acids. The amino...

These post-16 lesson plans look at Darwin’s pigeon breeding experiments and how they revealed the biology of inheritance and selection. Students will:

• Compare natural and artificial selection and be able to critically explain the difference between the two.
• Explore how Darwin used selective...

Following a EU rule change, the growing of GM crops across Europe will increase in many countries. It looks likely that GM foods such as breakfast cereals may be on our supermarket shelves within a year - but will many people choose them over GM-free alternatives? In this activity students apply their knowledge...