This activity asks students to carefully observe the buildings around them and the materials they are built from. The challenge is to design their own building, thinking about material choice, test strength of chosen materials and research the jobs involved within the construction industry. The challenge finishes...

In this resource, students use their STEM skills to help them design and build a model of a flood- proof house. Activities to help them with their design include testing materials (for strength and absorbency) and structures. Set on a fictitious island coping with the devastating effects of flooding caused by...

This challenge enables pupils to model and test filters as a way of making dirty water cleaner. It can also be used to explore ways of making water safe to drink.  Curriculum links include separation techniques and pure substances.

The challenge can provide a focus for National Science and Engineering Week,...

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...

The aim of this activity is for students to use tiddlywinks to represent sections of jumping genes, which they then flick onto a poster which is representative of a section of the human genome. Where their "gene" lands either will or will not disrupt the gene and may then cause disease. An accompanying PowerPoint...

Produced by the Hamilton Trust, these resources give details of six lessons on light and vision. This includes lesson plans, practical activities and all student materials. Students identify sources of light and revise facts such as light travels in straight lines and opaque objects form shadows. They understand...

Aimed at Key Stage One and lower Key Stage Two, this resource links to the topics of minibeasts and habitats. An introductory presentation focuses on 20 common mini-animals and looks at ways of identifying them such as the number of legs, colour, size and habitat.

The resource suggests activities and...

This resource contains a series of lessons which are designed to extend students’ knowledge and understanding of plastics and plastic waste on a global scale. Linking to materials and their properties, the environment, recycling and design and technology, they contain investigations and activities aimed at both...

This cross curricular resource explores the difference that growing pumpkins can make to the lives of people living in flood affected regions in Bangladesh. It includes finding out about Bangladesh and its people and ways to address poverty, investigating the pumpkin lifecycle and seed germination, designing and...

This resource uses the context of boats used in the America's cup sailing race to encourage students to think about the various types of energy resources, how they are used and the impact they have on the environment. 

The resource consists of a sequence of two lessons.  The first looks at the role of the...

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...

This resource provides a selection of lesson plans, worksheets and teachers notes relating to sound at Year Four. They include activities which show that sounds are made when objects vibrate and that sounds travel through solids, liquids and gases. They also look at the structure of the ear, how vibrations are...

This Practical Action resource presents a fun hands-on and brains-on challenge for Key Stages Two to Five.

The problem:...