A Science teacher by trade, I've also been known to be found teaching Maths and PE! However, strange as it may seem, my real love is designing resources that can be used by other teachers to maximise the experience of the students. I am constantly thinking of new ways to engage a student with a topic and try to implement that in the design of the lessons.
A Science teacher by trade, I've also been known to be found teaching Maths and PE! However, strange as it may seem, my real love is designing resources that can be used by other teachers to maximise the experience of the students. I am constantly thinking of new ways to engage a student with a topic and try to implement that in the design of the lessons.
This bundle of 4 lesson presentations and associated resources cover a lot of the mathematical skills that can be tested in Science. Since the move to the new GCSE specifications, the mathematical element has increased significantly and these lessons act to guide students through these skills. Students are shown how to convert between units, rearrange to change the subject of the formula and to use significant figures and standard form.
This bundle contains 6 detailed revision resources which have been designed to challenge the students on their knowledge of the AQA GCSE Combined Science Trilogy Specification content that can be assessed in the 6 papers that they will sit whilst remaining engaged and motivated due to the wide range of activities. These activities include differentiated tasks, quiz competitions and exam questions with displayed answers.
All of the Powerpoint-based lessons are so detailed and extensive that they are likely to be used over the course of a number of lessons, allowing the teacher to focus on specific areas for part of all of a lesson. The papers covered by these resources are:
Paper 1: Biology topics B1 - B4
Paper 2: Biology topics B5 - B7
Paper 3: Chemistry topics C1 - C5
Paper 4: Chemistry topics C6-C10
Paper 5: Physics topics P1 - P4
Paper 6: Physics topics P5 - P7
All of the lessons in this bundle are fully-resourced and have been designed to challenge the students on their knowledge of the topics which can be assessed in PAPER 2 of the Pearson Edexcel GCSE Physics specification.
The content in the following topics is covered by these lessons:
Topic 1: Key concepts in Physics
Topic 8: Energy - forces doing work
Topic 9: Forces and their effects
Topic 10: Electricity and circuits
Topic 12: Magnetism and the motor effect
Topic 13: Electromagnetic induction
Topic 14: Particle model
Topic 15: Forces and matter
The PowerPoints and accompanying resources contain a wide range of activities which include exam-style questions with clear explanations of the answer, differentiated tasks and quiz competitions. There is also a big emphasis on the mathematical element of the specification and students are guided through the use of a range of skills which include the conversion of units and the rearrange of formulae to change the subject.
This engaging and detailed lesson presentation (43 slides) uses a step by step guide to take students through the important scientific skill of drawing graphs to represent data and address all the misconceptions and misunderstandings that often accompany this topic. The lesson begins by explaining to the students how to decide whether data should be represented on a line graph or a bar chart and a competition called "To BAR or not to BAR" is used to allow them to check their understanding while maintaining motivation. Moving forwards, students are shown a 6 step guide to drawing a line graph. Included along the way are graphs that are wrong and explanations as to why so that students can see what to avoid. There are continuous progress checks and a homework is also included as part of the lesson.
This lesson is written for students of all ages who are studying Science.
This bundle of 4 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic P4 (Waves) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Using the terms frequency and wavelength
Using the terms amplitude, period and velocity
Longitudinal and transverse waves
Calculating wave speed
Refraction of waves
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 11 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic P2 (Electricity) of the AQA Trilogy GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Circuit diagram symbols
Electric charge and current
Current, resistance and potential difference
Resistors
Diodes
Series and parallel circuits
Electricity in the home
Power
The National Grid
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This is a fun and engaging lesson that uses a range of quick competitions and tasks to ensure that the students recognisethe electrical symbols for the essential components and can describe the functions for each of these. Competitions such as SNAP and SAY WHAT YOU SEE will introduce the students to the components and their symbols. This lesson has been written for GCSE students and looks to build on what they should know from KS3 - however, it could be used with higher ability students at that level.
This bundle of 9 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic P1 (Motion) of the core and supplement sections of the Cambridge iGCSE Science Double Award specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Define speed and calculate average speed
Distinguish between speed and velocity
Define and calculate acceleration
Plot distance-time graphs and speed-time graphs
Calculate acceleration and distance travelled from a speed-time graph
Distinguish between mass and weight
Recall and use the equation W = mg
Describe how forces can affect a body
Plot and interpret extension-load graphs
Understand Hooke’s Law
Friction and air resistance
Resultant forces
Calculating moments
The principle of moments
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding
This is a fully-resourced lesson that looks at the reflection of light waves and uses a series of practical based tasks to discover the rules of reflection as well as introducing the critical angle. In addition, students will encounter how total internal reflection can be used in medicine in endoscopy and will be challenged to carry out a task where they act as a doctor to explain to a patient how the procedure works. The lesson contains a variety of tasks, progress checks to check on understanding and a few quick competitions, which introduce key terms. For example, the cover image shows one of these competitions called REFLECT THE WORD where students have to work out the key term - the normal in this case. The understanding of key terminology such as the normal is important so that students can construct ray diagrams in this lesson and in associated topics such as refraction.
This lesson has been designed for GCSE aged students but could be used with younger students who are looking to go into this topic in greater depth than perhaps would normally be encountered at their level
This is a detailed lesson which looks at the topic of reaction times and guides students through calculating a reaction time using the results of the well known ruler-drop test. In addition, students will see how reaction times can be applied in athletics but also in the calculation of the thinking distance for drivers. The lesson includes an engaging lesson presentation (32 slides) and a student task worksheet.
The lesson begins by introducing the key term, reaction time, and teaching students that the average reaction time is 0.2 seconds. Moving forwards, a step by step guide is used to show the students how to take the value for distance travelled by a ruler in the drop test and use the equations of motion and change in velocity equation to calculate the reaction time. There is a large mathematical element to the lesson which challenges the students ability to rearrange formula, convert between units and leave answers to a specified number of significant figures. The answers and methods in obtaining these are always displayed at the end of each task so that the students can assess their understanding and recognise where errors were made if any were. Students will have to follow the provided method to obtain 5 results in the ruler drop test and ultimately find out their own reaction time. The remainder of the lesson looks at how the thinking distance at different speeds can be calculated.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students due to the high maths content but could be used with younger students of high ability.
This bundle of 6 lessons cover all of the content in the sub-topic P2.1 (Motion) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics or specification points covered within these lessons include:
Measuring distance and time to calculate speed
Conversion from non S.I. units to S.I. units
Be able to distinguish between scalar and vector quantities
Relate changes in motion to distance-time and velocity-time graphs
Calculate distance travelled from a velocity-time graph
Calculate average speed for non-uniform motion
Apply the equations of motion
Calculating acceleration
Calculating kinetic energy
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 11 lessons covers the key details about electrical circuits that students need to know for their GCSE studies. It could also be used with younger students at KS3 who are studying this topic.
All aspects of the topic are covered such as series and parallel circuits, electrical current, resistance and potential difference and the components found in these circuits. In addition, there are lessons on plugs, mains electricity and the National Grid so that students can make links between these topics.
All of the lessons are detailed and engaging and students will contain regular progress checks so that students can assess their understanding
A fully-resourced lesson that explores how resistance, current and potential difference differ between series and parallel circuits. This knowledge needs to be sound in order for students to be able to carry out circuit calculations. The lesson includes a practical and task-based lesson presentation (24 slides) and an accompanying worksheet. The lesson begins by challenging the students to recognise the key difference between the two circuits, in that in a parallel circuits, the electrons can follow more than one route. Moving forwards, each physical factor is investigated in each type of circuits and students carry out tasks or calculations to back up any theory given. Helpful analogies and hints are provided to guide the students through this topic which is sometimes poorly understood. Students will be challenged to use the V = IR equation on a number of occasions so that they are comfortable to find out any of these three factors. Progress checks have been written into the lesson at regular intervals so that students are constantly assessing their understanding and any misconceptions can be addressed.
This has been written for GCSE students, but could be potentially used with higher ability KS3 students.
This lesson has been designed to help students to explain the relationship between current and resistance in thermistors and LDRs. This can be a topic which students do not engage with or understand well, so this lesson has tried to add engagement with useful tips to deepen their knowledge. A number of quick competitions are used to introduce key terms such as semiconductor and then the key points explained. Students are given an exemplary answer for the thermistor so they can see how their work should be set out when trying to explain the graph produced by a LDR. Progress checks have been written into the lesson at regular intervals so that students can assess their understanding and any misconceptions can be addressed.
This lesson has been designed for GCSE students.
A fully-resourced lesson that includes a detailed and engaging lesson presentation (33 slides) and question worksheets which are diifferentiated. Together these resources guide students through the tricky topic of the conservation of energy by transfers between energy stores which can often be poorly understood. This lesson has been written for GCSE students, but the law can be taught from an earlier age so this would be suitable for higher ability KS3 lessons.
The lesson begins by introducing the key term, energy stores. The understanding of this term is critical for this topic and other lessons on energy transfers and therefore some time is taken to ensure that this key points are embedded into the lesson. Students will learn that stores can be calculated due to the fact that they have an equation associated with them and some of these need to be recalled (or applied) at GCSE. Therefore, the first part of the lesson involves two engaging competitions where students are challenged to recall part of an energy store equation or to recognise which energy store an equation is associated with. Students are given the information about the remaining energy stores, such as chemical and electrostatic. Moving forwards, the main part of the lesson explores the law of the conservation of energy and shows students how they need to be able to apply this law to calculation questions. Students are shown how to answer an example question involving the transfer of energy from a gravity store to a kinetic energy store. A lot of important discussion points come up in this calculation, such as resistive forces and the dissipation of energy, so these are given the attention they need. Students are then challenged to apply their knowledge to a calculation question on their own - this task has been differentiated two ways so that all students can access the learning. The final slide of the lesson looks at the different ways that energy can be transferred between stores but those are covered in detail in separate lessons.
An engaging and informative lesson presentation (49 slides) looks at the differences between contact and non-contact forces and focuses on enabling students to describe and recognise them. This lesson has been written for GCSE students but could be used in higher ability KS3 lessons with students who are looking to progress their knowledge.
The lesson begins by introducing the fact that forces can be grouped into these two categories and initial definitions are used to ease the students into the lesson. To follow on from this a competition called “FORCE it together” is used. This engaging game challenges the students to spot the name of a force which is in anagram form and then once it has been identified, they have to determine whether it would be a contact or non-contact force. As each force is met, key details are given and discussed. More time is given to areas which can cause problems for students, such as the use of weight and gravity force and whether they are actually different. Moving forwards, a rugby tackle is used to show the numerous forces that interact in everyday situations, before students are challenged to identify more forces in sports of their choice. Students will recall/learn that force is a vector quantity and therefore is represented in diagrams using arrows. Once again, this lesson focuses on showing them how these arrows can be used differently with the different types of forces. Students are briefly introduced to the idea of a free body diagram and an understanding check is used to see whether they can identify friction, gravity force and normal contact force from the arrows. Progress checks like this are written into the lesson at regular intervals, in a range of formats, so that students are constantly assessing their understanding. The final part of the lesson is one more quick competition where students have to use their knowledge of the forces to form words.
This is a fully-resourced lesson that guides students through the range of calculations involved in calculating speeds in everyday situations. This lesson includes an informative lesson presentation (27 slides) and a question worksheet which has been differentiated two ways.
The lesson begins by showing the students a speed camera and challenging them to recall the equation that would be used to calculate the speed as well as asking them to explain where the distance and the time values would come from. This lesson has a high mathematical element to it, to run in line with the questions that were seen in the latest exams this summer. Students will be expected to convert between units and rearrange formula. In this example, students are challenged to convert between m/s and mph in order to determine which of three drivers will receive a speeding ticket for exceeding the limit. This task has been differentiated so that students who find the conversions difficult are given some assistance so they can still access the learning. Moving forwards, students will see how a sensor on a tyre of a bicycle can also be used to calculate the speed by working out the circumference of the tyre to determine the distance. The final part of the lesson gets students to convert between m/s and mph and the other way to find out some typical speeds of everyday motion such as walking, running or a train moving.
This lesson has been written for GCSE aged students but could be used with younger students of high ability who need an extra challenge in the calculating speed topic.
This is a fully-resourced revision lesson which contains a wide range of activities to allow students to assess their understanding of the content in topic 2.3 (Work and energy) of the WJEC GCSE Physics specification. The engaging and detailed PowerPoint and accompanying differentiated resources use exam-style questions, tasks, discussion points and quick quiz competitions to check on the following specification points:
The equation W= Fd
The understanding that work is a measure of energy transfer
The fact that an object can possess energy due to its motion, position and deformation
Application of the equations for kinetic energy and changes in gravitational potential energy
Application of the conservation of energy
Understand the relationship between force and extension for a spring
Application of the equation to calculate spring constant
Using the force-extension graph to calculate the work done in stretching
Improving the energy efficiency of vehicles
This REVISION lesson contains an engaging and detailed powerpoint (40 slides) and is fully-resourced with associated worksheets. The lesson uses a range of activities which include exam questions (with displayed answers), differentiated tasks and quiz competitions to engage students whilst they assess their knowledge of the content that is found within topic P8 (Energy - forces doing work) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification.
The following specification points are covered in this lesson:
Identify the different ways that the energy of a system can be changed
Describe how to measure the work done by a force and understand that energy transferred (joule, J) is equal to work done (joule, J)
Recall and use the equation to calculate work done
Describe and calculate the changes in energy involved when a system is changed by work done by forces
Recall and use the equation to calculate the change in gravitational potential energy
Recall and use the equation to calculate the amounts of energy associated with a moving object
Explain, using examples, how in all system changes energy is dissipated so that it is stored in less useful ways
Explain that mechanical processes become wasteful when they cause a rise in temperature so dissipating energy in heating the surroundings
Recall and use the equation to calculate efficiency
This lesson is suitable for use throughout the duration of the GCSE course, as an end of topic revision lesson or as a lesson in the lead up to mocks or the actual GCSE exams
A concise lesson presentation (16 slides) and associated worksheet that looks at the motion topic of Momentum and guides students through how to answer these questions. The lesson begins by giving the students the units for momentum and challenging them to use this to work out the other factors involved in the equation. Moving forwards, a number of progress checks are used to see whether the students can apply their new found knowledge. All progress checks have displayed mark schemes.
This lesson has been designed for GCSE students and ties in nicely with my other resources, "Conservation of momentum" and "Changes in momentum"