This chapter in the booklet Relevant and Engaging Statistics and Data Handling from the Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education (RSSCSE) describes how to plan an investigation by outlining the main steps a student should go take when doing an investigation: planning, collecting, processing,...

Produced by the Learning Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), this case study looks at the themes of innovation in STEM and harnessing technology. It describes how the biology team at Bexhill College used a differentiated ‘Focus Question’ approach to practical investigations.

Students were made more aware of...

This resource, from the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB), allows students to investigate the behaviour of ants, and includes:

• Background information about British ants.
• A step-by-step approach to the collection and maintenance of some British ants with particular reference to...

The work in the Laboratory Guides was of three types.
*Preliminary work aimed to cover possible deficiencies in the students' background and provides reinforcement material for the less able student.
*Main work was within the capacity of the majority of A-level students. The amount of practical work was...

The Nuffield Advanced Biology project published this guidance for students and teachers on all of the main issues involved in practical work and extended investigations following changes to the specifications in the 1990s.

Contents

Chapter 1: A guide for students on class practical...

In the Nuffield Advanced Physics course, published by the Nuffield Foundation, the original authors were keenly aware of the need to design an end-of-course examination that was not only technically 'reliable' but was also 'valid', in that it tested the stated aims of...

In this project, students investigate how velocity and other factors affect the extent of bodywork damage in head-on collisions between model vehicles.

A family car travelling at 30 mph has about 90 kJ of kinetic energy. In a crash, this reduces to zero...

In this project, students look at factors which affect the absorption of vitamins and minerals:

• They could use Visking tubing to model a cell membrane. The relative times taken...

Plant gums are often used in the food industry as thickening and stabilising agents. Gums are water soluble polysaccharides, such as starch and cellulose. In this activity, students investigate what happens to the texture when different polysaccharides are mixed.

When solutions of some polysaccharides are...

Produced by Science & Plants for Schools (SAPS), these materials look at the work of plant research scientist, Jess Chu. Through investigating vitamin C in plants, students gain a greater understanding of the career opportunities available in plant biology.

This is one of a series of extended units, from the Association for Science Education and the Design and Technology Association, to provide in-depth coverage of a topic or an area of the curriculum. Through the study of this unit, students can learn about control systems; use a process for analysing systems; and...

This investigation covers two circles theorems through one demonstration. The theorems are:

• That the angles on the same arc forming a chord are equal

• That the angle at the centre is twice the angle at the arc when drawn from the same chord

The initial...

These investigation booklets from Eigen publications mainly support number skills and the development of number properties as well as encouraging students to be systematic and to look for patterns.

* One to four investigations involving building numbers from specified starting numbers and...

These investigation booklets from Eigen publications include shape joining investigations but mainly support number skills and the development of number properties as well as encouraging students to be systematic and to look for patterns.

* Prime numbers 1 investigations include prime number...

This mini-course from the Nuffield Exploratory Data Skills Project: Making Sense of Data is about planning an investigation which will produce data to be analysed. As a result of this mini-course students should learn to:

• think about the problem from a common sense point of view

• try out ideas on a...