Teachers

Below, we provide teachers with links to useful resources published by others. They are broken down by topic. Click on the links below to select a topic or scroll down to review them all.

RESOURCES TO USE WITH CHILDREN

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Explorify

Explorify is a free online resource of engaging, creative science activities, developed by Wellcome, that have been designed to spark curiosity, discussion and debate, including videos and hands-on activities.

Twig Science Reporter

Twig Science Reporter is an online primary science news service which helps teachers integrate topical science into everyday teaching and learning. Twig Science Reporter engages primary school children with the wonders of the world around them using high-quality films and other learning resources. The service is updated weekly with new content and is available free of charge to all primary school teachers across the UK.

Wow Science

Wow Science provides links to primary science learning materials on the web. The resources cover a broad range of science subjects and are suitable for all primary ages. The resources have been approved by the Primary Science Teaching Trust for quality and suitability.

RESOURCES TO USE FOR PLANNING

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PLAN

PLAN is a set of resources produced to enable teachers to have a clearer understanding of National Curriculum (England) expectations for meeting the standard in science. Annotated collections of children’s work provide examples of what working at the expected standard for primary science might look like for the knowledge and conceptual understanding statements of the programmes of study.

STEM Learning

The STEM Learning website has a number of useful resources, including Teaching science through stories, Primary science resource packages and Primary resources for cross curricular topics.

CREST Awards

The CREST Awards are a scheme that inspires young people to think and behave like scientists and engineers. Their free project resources and challenge packs incorporate a range of science activities across numerous themes to suit varying skills and age groups.

Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry's Steps into Science website hosts their collections of resources that support the development of teacher's subject knowledge and the teaching of primary chemistry, including linking science with cross-curricula topics, with resources that detail investigations to run with your class.

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READING IN SCIENCE

Books For Topics

The Books for Topics website helps primary teachers identify high-quality books to use in their teaching. It is organised by subject, key stage and topic. The books recommended are reviewed by people from across the primary education community and from a variety of settings before they are recommended.

Science for Reading

This Science for Reading project from SEERIH supports teachers to use reading books in science lessons to enhance pupil's use and understanding of keywords and vocabulary. The website includes recommended books organised by key stage and topic, as well as advice on how to choose the most suitable science texts to use in the classroom and how you know the vocabulary you focus on within a text is understood, and more.

That Science Lady Story Lists

That Science Lady publishes a list of stories linked to the curriculum, as well as a list of books that can be used to broaden representation in your science-related books. It includes biographies of inspiring people as well as a range of texts linked to specific curriculum themes.

DIVERSITY

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1001 Inventions

1001 Inventions is a British-based, award-winning science and cultural heritage organisation engaging over 400 million people around the world. It uncovers a thousand years of scientific and cultural achievements from Muslim civilisation from the 7th century onwards, and how those contributions helped create the foundations of our modern world.

Perimeter Institute's Forces of Nature Posters

The Perimeter Institute For Theoretical Physics in Canada has published free downloadable posters of female scientists from around the World.

Research Cards: Black Physicists

These research cards, produced by The Ogden Trust, introduce the achievements of six Black physicists who have all made significant contributions in their fields of work, but whose stories are often less well-known. This resource includes a writing framework to help students gather and process their research thoughts, ideas and further questions.

Nevertheless Podcast STEM Role Models Posters

The Nevertheless podcast has published a set of free to download posters celebrating the women transforming teaching and learning through technology.

PBS Education's 10 Black Scientists

PBS Education have made a list of some of the top Black scientists, engineers, inventors and mathematicians to help you bring their work - and stories - into your classroom.

Research Champions

Each story in Research Champions is written for children aged 8+ about a real scientist and the discoveries that they have made in the last five years, so the stories reflect the highlights of science right now. The scientists represented are from a diverse range of backgrounds – both academically and as people - and highlight that there are no rules about what a scientist is, does, or looks like. The stories are linked to the current English National Curriculum.

STEM Role Models

Nottingham University's Biodiscovery Institute has published a STEM Role Models pack as a resource for teachers to provide new diverse role models (past and present) to reference when talking to 9 to 12-year-old children about STEM subjects.

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A Scientist Just Like Me

A Scientist Just Like Me provides illustrated examples of the diversity in science-related jobs. It consists of a series of short slideshows, each one ‘telling the story’ of a particular scientist or person working in a science-related job.

SUSTAINABILITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Some of the resources listed below are linked to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals which include, but are broader than, human impact on the environment. Some focus purely on human impact on the environment.

The UN's Sustainable Development Goals website includes simple, free, downloadable icons for each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that may be useful in the classroom for helping pupils learn about the Goals.

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STEM Challenges

Practical Action's free STEM, science, design and technology challenges fit the UK curriculum and engage children in real world issues including climate change, renewable energy, food security and disaster preparedness.

Encounter Edu

Encounter Edu designs and delivers STEM and global learning programs, including free live lessons, teacher resources and pupil activities. The live lessons are with scientists working in locations such as the Arctic, oceans, coral reefs and jungles.

WWF

WWF has created a range of free primary school resources and activities to support school's efforts to put sustainability at the heart of the education they provide.

The Pod

The Pod uses engaging multi-media resources and characters to inspire young people and their families to choose a more sustainable lifestyle. It has a particular focus on energy, waste and biodiversity, but also covers a range of other environmental topics. All of the resources are curriculum-linked, free and aimed at 4 to 16-year-olds and include lesson plans, practical activities, assemblies, films, games and information packs as well as posters, stickers and badges.

OPAL

Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) was a UK-wide citizen science initiative founded and led by Imperial College London enabling people to get hands-on with nature while contributing to important scientific research. It designed a suite of field and desk-based activities, suitable for all ages, abilities and backgrounds, designed to increase understanding of the natural environment through data collection covering wildlife and habitat conditions. The activities include simple instructions, a workbook to record results and species identification guides/keys.

Eco-Schools

Eco-Schools is a global programme that is pupil-led, involving hands-on learning that gets the whole school and the wider community involved in environmental projects and improving their environmental awareness. It provides schools with free resources to help them progress to the international Eco-Schools Green Flag within 12 months of registration.

Climate Detectives

Climate Detectives is a schools project for students aged 8-15, from the European Space Agency. Pupils are asked to make a difference by identifying a climate problem, investigating it by using available Earth observation data or taking measurements on the ground, and then proposing a way to help reduce it. At key phases, scientists in the field of Earth observation and climate support the teams.

Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss Resources

The Royal Society has published classroom resources that can be used to engage students aged 7-18 in the climate change and biodiversity loss.

OUTDOOR LEARNING

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Woodland Trust's Tree Tools for Schools

The Woodland Trust's Tree Tools for Schools website offers free curriculum-linked resources to inspire pupils with outdoor learning.

RHS Campaign for School Gardening

The RHS Campaign for School Gardening aims to inspire and support schools to provide children with gardening opportunities to enhance their skills and boost their development. Its website includes a Resources section that includes free lesson plans, activities, projects and information sheets.

Sustainable Learning

Sustainable Learning's website offers free outdoor learning resources linked to the National Curriculum.

Learning Through Landscapes

Learning through Landscapes offers free outdoor learning ideas and lesson plans for curricular-led outdoor learning or forest school-type activities. They have been developed by experienced teachers and early years educators and are all sorted by key stage, curricular area and age suitability.

Wild Challenge & Big Schools' Birdwatch

The RSPB's Wild Challenge award is a specially developed suite of free activities for schools to use to engage children with nature and provide practical learning opportunities. The Big Schools' Birdwatch takes place every year and schools from every corner of the UK take part, turning their classes into conservation scientists.

Outdoor Classroom Day

Outdoor Classroom Day is a global movement to make time outdoors part of every child’s day. On two days of action each year, teachers take children outdoors to play and learn. The Resources section of their website includes free play ideas to do at home, outdoor lesson ideas for school, and guidance on making time outdoors part of every child’s day.

National Insect Week

Every two years, the Royal Entomological Society runs National Insect Week which encourages people of all ages to learn more about insects. The National Insect Week website includes a range of learning resources relating to insects and entomology which can be filtered by age-group and resource type.

TEACHERS

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