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Browse teaching resources that explore the topics of our videos. All of these resources have been reviewed and approved by secondary science teachers.

What are Quantum Rainbows?
Thursday 5th Oct 2017, 09.00am

What are Quantum Rainbows

‘What are Quantum Rainbows?’ you ask? Watch our animation and follow a tale of an intrepid explorer below, as we try to find out.

In these resources, inspired by the QCUMbER project led by the University of Oxford, students explore how spectra are formed, and how spectroscopy can be used by researchers (KS3 and 5), how 'colour' can be used to encode more information than binary codes (KS4), and how analogue signals like sound can be converted into digital codes (KS4).
KS3 - How to read a rainbow
KS4 - Colour coded
KS4 - Let's get digital
KS5 - Spectroscopy
Students make their own spectroscope to explore spectra from different light sources, and learn about the ways that researchers use spectroscopy in a range of scientific applications.
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'.
In this activity, students learn about how sound, analogue data, can be converted in to a digital code, and look at amplitude, frequency, etc.
In this activity, students explore emission spectra, calculate wavelength and energy, and learn about the different ways that spectroscopy can be used by researchers to do a range of things, from looking at the composition of distant starts, to developing more powerful ways to transmit data.
Machine Learning
Tuesday 10th Jan 2017, 08.45am

What is Machine Learning?

Machine learning is all around us; on our phones, powering social networks, helping the police and doctors, scientists and mayors. But how does it work? In this animation we take a look at how statistics and computer science can be used to make machines that learn.

In these resources students develop their own algorithms (KS3), explore the ethics of leaving decision making to machines (KS4), learn how images can get stored as data, and delve into what the consequences of false positives and negatives could be for various applications (KS5).
KS3 - All Sorted
KS4 - Computer Says No
KS4 - Picture This
KS5 - Testing Testing
In this lesson students will develop their own rules/algorithms for sorting objects and also look at the effect that increasing the size of the data set has. It is also possible to use the second part of this lesson to look at creating and using classification keys.
Students explore the ethics of using computers to make decisions. Is it a good idea to have computers making decisions if we can’t know how they are deciding the outcome? Are computers more or less likely to be biased than people? Are there some decisions that should always/never be made by computers?
In this lesson students will explore how bitmap images can be stored or displayed using binary notation, how the image can be compressed using RLE and information about meta-data that is stored with the image.
In this lesson, students discover some of the uses of machine learning in addition to exploring the numbers behind false negatives and false positives and some of their surprising consequences.
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