In this activity students are asked to consider how they would improve five amusing experiments by evaluating aspects of the experimental design including control of variables, sample size, bias, control groups and quality of data. 

This resource, from the University of Nottingham, describes a number of investigations which could be carried out in heathland habitats. Heathlands are excellent habitats to use for designing and carrying out experiments. Plants are often relatively easy to identify when compared with other habitats and...

This collection of three resources asks students to:

*design and model the physical elements of a robot arm and demonstrate how this could be achieved using a smart material. Students can then subsequently use this information to support the design of a robot arm.

*design and model a robot arm in 2D,...

Design and make a seed from a newly discovered plant using junk materials.This activity provides an opportunity for creative thinking around the topic of germination and seed dispersal. It also supports the development of literacy and presentation skills. Further ideas...

In this activity, pupils will use the theme of the London Marathon to respond to a design context, investigate the context on the internet and design a wheelchair for sports use. 

Pupils will consider the use of different search...

This activity sheet is based on the Inventive Podcast.  It introduces a structural engineer and author, Roma Agrawal, and links her work to forces. The activity sheet also supports Careers Benchmark 4: Careers in the curriculum by introducing a career and role model. There are also links to short audio clips of the...

Children and young people need attractive, accessible school buildings.  ‘Inclusive’ design can enable and empower those with SEN and disabilities to participate fully in life at school and in the wider community. This building bulletin draws together information to help everyone involved in designing these schools...

A Catalyst article about designing, building and testing a spacecraft. There are thousands of man-made satellites orbiting the Earth. Some are only a few hundred kilometres above the Earth and complete one orbit roughly every 90 minutes. Geostationary satellites are located around 40 000 kilometres from the surface...

This comprehension activity, aimed at students aged 11-14, looks at the role of the immune system in protecting us from infectious disease, and how it recognises the difference between the body (‘self’) and invader. This worksheet is part of a collection of materials based on...

Unilever updated its series of Educational Booklets in the late 1960s. The company launched a Revised Ordinary Series and also began an Advanced Series. Detergents was the first booklet in the Ordinary Series. This booklet covers both soaps and soapless detergents. [b]Contents...

This is one of the 18 Background Books published for Stage II of the Nuffield Chemistry Sample Scheme. The books were highly illustrated designed to be attractive. This book describes applications of chemistry to cleaning.

There are three parts to this book:
*Part 1: Soap
This part explains how...

This Unilever Laboratory Experiment, published in 1973, describes two methods for determining the vitamin C in foods. The leaflet describes the estimation of vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid) in foodstuffs, after extraction with metaphosphoric acid, by titration with a standardized dye, 2,6 dichlorophenolindophenol,...

This Unilever Laboratory Experiment, published in 1970, describes the procedure for a titration with EDTA and Eriochrome Black T to determine the total hardness of water. The details cover the preparation of a standard solution of EDTA as well as the steps of the titration.

As the number of cells in a microbial culture increases, turbidity increases. In this experiment students calculate doubling time and growth rate constant using absorbance as the measure of growth. Turbidity is caused by suspended cells in the growth medium scattering light, and may be measured using a colorimeter...