The Broadening Secondary School Science, or BRaSS initiative, seeks to develop teachers’ and students’ understanding and insight about:-

• how knowledge works
• cross-curricular links in science 
• the place of...

This is a hand-on activity to explore the inheritance of cystic fibrosis, using counters to represent normal and faulty CFTR genes.  Curriculum links include:

• Punnet squares & autosomal recessive diseases
• Autosomal...

These wide-ranging resources provide information and guidance that will help practitioners and employers consider issues such as gender equality, subject choice, inclusive pedagogy and providing successful work placements.

Introduction to SAMHE

This short video introduces the SAMHE project and teachers share how they are using SAMHE and the benefits for their students, themselves and their schools. 

Dallas Campbell talks about how engineering links to the production and packaging of foods.  He gives the example of the bacon sandwich that was designed...

Bacteria are one of the simplest forms of independent life with no nucleus or membrane bound organelles. These animations, from the Wellcome Trust, show that, despite this apparent simplicity, bacterial diseases pose a profound threat to world health. The animations are suitable as a lesson starter, to introduce...

This Catalyst article explains the way scientists work, how they conduct research and look for patterns in data. It also investigates what can go wrong during the process of spotting patterns in the collated information.

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These maths samples from Badger include lesson starters and main activities in the form of problem solving.

The lesson starters have clear objectives linked to the Framework for Teaching Mathematics, a list of key words and questions. The starters can be used either to introduce an idea which then goes on to...

This activity, suitable for a multi-lesson sequence or a single extended session, challenges students to design and prototype a simple motion-sensing alarm. The device is intended to prevent theft or the accidental picking-up of a bag.

Motion is sensed using the accelerometer built-in to the BBC micro:bit,...

This resource asks pupils to apply their knowledge of forces, resultant forces and the affect of forces on the motion of an object. The first task checks pupils' ability to be able to interpret force arrows to describe qualitatively the motion of a lorry and calculate the resultant force.  Pupils are then asked to...

A Year Ten module from the Salters’ double award GCSE science course. This module deals with interactions between species in ecosystems. Students are shown how stable conditions lead to a natural balance in populations and how human activities can disturb this balance....

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...

A balloon is being blown up by a person. Between blows, the person pauses. As time progresses the person takes longer pauses and shallower blows. At the end, the air is released from the balloon. The challenge is to graph the length of the balloon against time.

Balloon length video

The Big Picture on pages 10-11 of this issue of Catalyst shows scientists in Antarctica launching a balloon which will travel up through the atmosphere to a height of 34 km above the Earth’s surface. This balloon is part of NASA’s BARREL mission, probing the radiation belts which surround the Earth.

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In this activity, students consider the evidence for causal links between sugar consumption, obesity and disease. They then weigh up arguments for and against banning sugary drink sales to children.

Curriculum links include:

Key Stage Three:

*Working Scientifically: Analysis and evaluation –...