Teachers Notes
Teaching resources
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Teaching Resources View by Key Stage
KS4 - A Geological Blink
In this lesson, students will be coming to grips with the geological timescale of the Earth, of life on Earth, and of human history. They will be exploring the colourful history that explains how scientists can detect the colours of creatures long dead, and identify hints of early microbial life interacting with the atmosphere and lithosphere.
KS4 - Fingerprinting Mars Mud
In this lesson, students will be exploring x-ray diffraction, the analytical technique used by scientists to explore the underlying structures of muds and comparing them to their own observations. Their detective skills will come in useful when samples gathered by rovers on Mars are compared to samples from Earth’s history. Astrobiologists hope to detect traces of minerals that could be “fingerprints” of early life. This lesson is better suited to higher ability classes.KS4 - Carbon Copy
. In this lesson students find out more about the allotropes and, in particular, the allotropes of carbon by building models.Student Worksheet
KS4 - Logically Speaking
In this activity students learn about the development of electronic components through history and learn about logic gates from their diagrams and truth tables.KS4 - Genetic Counselling
This activity is suitable for extending the more able and asks students to take the role of a genetic counsellor advising someone who has the faulty BRAC1 gene and therefore an increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.KS4 - Testing Your DNA
In this activity students think about what genetic tests can show, and if they would consider having one. They create media to help people make an informed decision on whether to have a genetic test.KS4 - Colour coded
In this resource, students learn how information can be converted into code, such as binary (using 1s and 0s), or how using colours instead of just 'on' and 'off' can allow you to encode more information with fewer 'bits'.Student Worksheet