Unexpected ways that paint prevents corrosion

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 materials science.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of materials scientists, Professor Stuart Lyon and Dr Yanwei Liu from the University of Manchester and Dr Andrew Parnell from the University of Sheffield. They are researching ways to improve the anti-corrosive properties of paint.

• This resource also contains an interview with Stuart, Yanwen and Andy. If your students have questions for the researchers, they can send the questions online. All they need to do is to go to the article page (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). The researchers will respond!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) and activities to prompt students to reflect on different techniques to understand and manipulate the properties of paint.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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