Produced by Understanding Animal Research, this information leaflet looks at the regulation of animal research in the UK. The law safeguards animals while allowing important medical research to continue.

The leaflet is useful as information for teachers and also as background or research information for...

Using the data from CensusAtSchool 2006/2007, this data analysis resource looks at trends in life expectancy in populations. Students consider both the primary data collected from CensusAtSchool and secondary data about life expectancy and major causes of death. A plenary asks students to consider what they have...

This practical activity uses a simple and convenient model of the real environment in order to demonstrate the principles of random sampling and how to estimate biodiversity. Students use different coloured sugar balls to represent different species in order to put Simpson's Diversity Index to the test, which takes...

A Catalyst article about a Kenyan scientist who is searching for better treatments for malaria, a disease which kills more than a million people in Africa each year. The article also explains some of the challenges of doing science in Africa, where funding is low. Often the illness shows a remarkable ability to...

A Catalyst article about ants. A colony consists of hundreds, even thousands, of ants working diligently and cooperatively, perhaps to kill and carry a large prey item, build a large nest structure or develop and use road-like networks for foraging. Collectively, colonies of social insects can do amazing things and...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine. This issue looks at the interplay between the biology that sculpts our form and the culture that interprets and adapts it.

This video introduces common misconceptions about radiation.  It then discusses the types of radiation that exists and considers how harmful they might be to us.  Our exposure to background radiation is discussed.

In this activity students use a smartphone to determine the precise amount of copper in an aqueous solution of nitric acid. Students collect comparative values of different copper-solutions with special apps to produce a diagram and estimate the amount of copper, based on the Lambert-Beer Law that explains that the...

The aim of this resource is to answer the question how do CO₂ emissions link to global temperatures? This lesson, linked to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, explores the concept of a carbon budget. To answer the question, students create a pie chart to...

This video shows how collaboration between physicists and biologists has solved the mystery of how a chameleon changes its colour. The colour changes are due to light diffraction and interference patterns. Nano-sized particles in the chameleon’s skin can be distributed so selectively reflect different wavelengths...

This video compares the language used by classical computers (0 and 1) with that used by quantum computers (qubits).  Qubits can be photons, nuclei or electrons.  In this video the use of electrons is explained as follows.  To be able to measure something it must change and for electrons their ability to occupy...

This video explains how n-type and p-type semiconductors can be used to create a transistor.

The explanation

n-type semiconductors are made from silicon that has been doped with phosphorous.  The additional electron from the P can be used to form a current. P-type semiconductors are...

This video begins by showing how Bernoulli’s law can explain wing lift.  It then introduces ideas that cannot easily be explained using the law, for example, why can planes fly upside down?  Why do flat winged planes fly?

Newton’s 3rd law is used to offer a different explanation, i.e., as long as air is...

This video introduces the idea of inertia by using a large globe suspended by water. It shows that acceleration requires an unbalanced force and then explains that an objects inertia is its tendency to maintain its motion unless it is acted upon by an unbalanced force.