Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, the resources in this section help students to develop their skills in listening and observing. The area deals with:
• active listening
• guided observing
• summarising and documenting
• critical...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, this activity gives students the opportunity to practise quickly skim-reading a text to assess its usefulness.

A guided activity asks students to quickly browse through a scientific article and extract information such as its title, author and the subject of...

These activities, produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, help students to look at a text, after an initial skim read, to judge if it is worth considering in more detail.

This ‘second glance’ activity serves several aims:
* It enables students to assess quickly what is the subject of the...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, this activity helps students to consider how useful and informative article titles are.

During the activity, students:
* browse a scientific article.
* look for information such as the author, publication date and content of the abstract.
*...

These activities, produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, help students to identify different sections in scientific texts which help to create an order and logical progression of the information conveyed. It encourages students to look at how the information is split into several principal types and...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, this activity helps students to further examine scientific texts.

Texts can be characterised according to the type of information or knowledge they deal with. There are different kinds of texts and they can be classified and sorted in various ways. This...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, the resources in this section help students to develop their skills in scientific reading.

This skill area concentrates on reading three types of scientific texts:...

These activities, produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, help students to categorise different types of visual representations.

Students are given a large number of different visual representations dealing with a range of scientific subjects. Through a 'happy families-style' card-game, students...

These activities, produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, have students write down what they have learned and understood from a graph about life expectancy and mortality. First in the form of statements and then in a narrative form. Students then move on to look at the different components of the graph,...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, this activity helps students to link information in graphs with questions that could be asked about the data.

Students are presented with a series of graphs and a series of questions. Their task is to match the questions to the graphs. Different activities...

These activities, produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, challenge students to look at tabulated data and produce a suitable graph to emphasise the key findings of the data. Tables of information are supplied on different topics including human physiology, atmospheric composition on different planets and...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, this activity is designed to have students study a visual representation in detail. Students are asked to look consider components that include:
* the title
* its content
* information the students have gathered from the visual
*...

These activities, produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, help students to interpret diagrams and visual representations that are drawn in cross-section.

This is a skill that is often taken for granted but often used in scientific representations, such as when drawing apparatus. This activity...

Produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, this activity provides students with a colour-coded map of the world. Students must try and interpret the visual representation.

A series of images gradually give more information, and finally a legend, which allows students to fully understand the image....

These activities, produced by Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme, helps students to understand how to interpret information shown in a genetic family tree diagram.

A series of diagrams each have more explanation so that students can gather clues and check their understanding.

Alternative activities...