In 2012, the Olympic and Paralympic games will be held in London. These resources look at a wide range of topics that can all be linked to the games. They cover science, technology, engineering and mathematics and can be used in individual lessons or as part of a cross-curricular Olympic and Paralympic theme.

These materials, from Waste Watch (part of Keep Britain Tidy), have been developed to make explicit links between sustainability and packaging for students following GCSE level design and technology courses. The scheme of learning includes suggested activities for five active learning sessions, supported by the...

Students are introduced to 4 different scales of production that they may come across, one-off, batch, mass and continuous through a video clip showing a wide range of products which they need to categorise into a type of production. Details are given on the characteristics of one-off production, and how it can be...

This guide is suitable to support a full introductory wearable-technology project using Arduino. It gives an overview of the Arduino system as well as the key terms surrounding ‘making’ and ‘hacking’. After a brief review of basic electrical theory, a closer look at the inputs and outputs of a basic board, and of...

This resource is an introductory lesson to electronic systems. Its content looks at system diagrams (I.e. circuit diagram, flow charts), open loop systems and closed loop systems. Using the key terms input, process, output and feedback, students are given examples of products and asked to describe the system that...

A case study from Mathematics Matters which looks at the development of optical fibres and how mathematical models have simplified the process of producing them. Modern society relies heavily on a variety of networks, but we don’t fully understand how they behave. Mathematical network theory lets us create models...

Students experiment with prisms and 3D cinema glasses to explain some of the interesting properties of light and their cinematic application.

In this activity, students are introduced to Maglev technology as a way of reducing the friction between the tube and the train in a vacuum tube train. Students are presented with the scenario that in 2025, the UK has been invited to invest £100 billion towards the...

This resource from the Department for Education develops the 3-D thinking required to move between solid objects and their 2-D nets. The activities are placed in the context of packaging. Students flatten out a packaging box to show the flat 2-D 'net' that made up the whole pack and investigate how the net could be...

A collection of resources for GCSE Design and Technology that support the teaching of material properties with different papers and boards.

Pupils will learn about materials and forces, including gravity and air resistance, in this experiment from the IET. Using Christmas as an opportunity to get practical, p...

Help encourage your child's STEM skills, passion and talent with this parents' guide to engineering careers.

Students from The Heathlands School met a STEM Ambassador. The visit provided students with insight into a career in cooking and nutrition, focussing on the many and varied kinds of pastry and how they are made. This input was very helpful during the four week pastry unit.

 Over four weeks, students...

The Department of Education's Pedagogy and Practice: Teaching and Learning in Secondary Schools contains 19 individual booklets offering guidance on a range of teaching strategies. The booklets can be used by schools or individual teachers, especially  NQTs, to further their own professional development. 

In...

This guide is for all secondary school leaders and teachers as they seek to improve teaching and learning both within their own institutions and in collaboration with colleagues in other schools. It provides information about the Pedagogy and practice study guides, looks at ways that schools may use them to support...