This resource explores the properties and uses of piezoelectric materials and quantum tunnelling composites. Taking examples from space technology, it provides a number of examples to discuss in the classroom and suggests practical experiments to give your students a hands-on examples of the technology.

Shape memory alloys (SMA) and shape memory polymers (SMP) remember their original shape, even after being significantly deformed, returning to their original shape in response to a stimulus. This resource explores the technology behind SMA's and SMP's, the properties that they bring to engineered products and...

These teacher notes will guide you through the collection of resources created for space-inspired smart materials. Including:

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This resource explores the topic of thermochromic materials. It provides content to explain what they are, how they are used and suggests practical experiments that will allow students to get hands-on with the material.

Receptors under our skin send signals to our brains about the world around us. Engineers are borrowing this idea from the human body to create a ‘smart skin’ for aircraft. In this activity students learn about motes, the tiny sensors at the heart of this innovation, and how science and mathematics are central to...

This Mathematics Matters case study, produced by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, looks at how industry relies on cutting-edge mathematics to develop better quality communications. The amount of information we can transmit though the air is limited by the laws of physics, but the mathematics of...

In this STEM club activity, students build their own smartphone projector using a mobile phone, shoebox and a magnifying lens.

In this Bowland assessment task, students are presented with an accurate drawing of a smoothie bottle. The task is to design a box that will hold twelve bottles. Students are required to measure significant parts of the bottle and use the results to help design the box, draw the net of the box, label the dimensions...

This task is designed to assess how well students understand using a description to draw the net of a shape.

Top and side views are shown of a smoothie bottle. The task is to design a package that will hold twelve of the bottles. The bottles must be held so that they do not rattle about. All of the...

Snappers, part of the T5 (Targeting Level 5) materials from the National Strategies, are short, whole-class interactive activities based around key areas of mathematics pitched at levels four and five.

Snappers provide starter activities for lessons. The worksheets could be displayed on a computer or the...

This hands-on classroom activity from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for Key Stage Two and Key Stage Three students aims to aid in the teaching of respiratory health and hygiene topics. This interactive, practical activity demonstrates how microbes, such as bacteria...

The Department of Education resource Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning Secondary SEAL – A Quick Guide looks to define SEAL and its key elements, and well as offering a six-step approach on how to get started with SEAL.

Scientists from the University of Oxford are studying how information and misinformation can spread across social media platforms.  Mathematical models can be used to help predict how information might spread. 

In...