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.
A fully resourced lesson which includes an informative lesson presentation (25 slides) and an associated worksheet that show students how to give answers to a certain number of significant figures. The answers to questions in Science are often required to be given in significant figures and this lesson guides students through this process, including the rules of rounding that must be applied for success to be likely.
This lesson has been designed for GCSE students but is suitable for KS3
A fully resourced lesson, which includes an informative lesson presentation (22 slides) and differentiated worksheets that guide students through the topic of balancing symbol equations. The lesson takes the students through the steps involved and begins by getting them to be able to recognise when an equation is balanced or not. The difficulty of the equations to be balanced increases as the lesson progresses and students are given helpful hints to aid their progress.
This lesson is suitable for both KS3 and GCSE students
A concise and engaging lesson, which looks at chemical and physical changes with the key objective that students can recognise the differences between the two. Key terminology is used throughout, such as irreversible and practical examples are discussed. A number of short sharp quiz competitions are used to maintain motivation as well as checking on the understanding.
This lesson is suitable for KS3 and GCSE students (11 - 16 year olds in the UK)
A fully resourced lesson which guides students through writing decay equations to represent alpha and beta decay. This lesson includes a lesson presentation (41 slides) and differentiated worksheets. Time is taken at the beginning of the lesson to ensure that students know the sub-atomic particles that are found in an alpha particle and a beta particle so that they can understand why the atomic and mass numbers are affected during the decay. Moving forwards, a step-by-step guide is used to show students how to write both types of equations. There are regular progress checks throughout the lesson so that students can check their understanding.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students (14 - 16 year olds in the UK)
A fully-resourced lesson which uses a step-by-step guide to show students how to write fully balanced symbol equations. The lesson includes an engaging lesson presentation (38 slides) and associated worksheets containing questions which iaredifferentiated.
The lesson begins by talking the students through the three steps involved in writing a chemical symbol equation. The first step involves writing in the formula for the elements. Students are introduced to the term, diatomic, and shown the 8 molecules that have to be written as a pair of atoms. Moving forwards, students are shown how to write chemical formulae for ionic compounds. They are reminded of how to use the group of the Periodic Table to work out the ion charge and how this is crucial when writing the formula. They are also shown how to write formulae which include brackets which is necessary when the charged molecules are involved. Finally, students are reminded of the rules of balancing symbol equations. There are progress checks at each stage so that students can assess their understanding and any misconceptions can be be addressed immediately. Time is taken to talk about state symbols, in case the exam question requires these to be included in the equation. The final section of the lesson involves students bringing their new-found skills together to write symbol equations for a range of reactions, including a neutralisation and reversible reaction. This task is differentiated so that students who need a little bit of assistance can still access the work.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students (14-16 year olds in the UK)
An engaging lesson presentation (46 slides) which looks at the fractional distillation of crude oil and focuses on the properties of the different fractions.
The aim at the start of the lesson is to ensure that students understand that this process can be broken down into evaporation followed by condensation. Moving forwards, a fun competition is used to introduce the students to the names of some of the important fractions that are produced by this process. At the same time, they will learn the relative position that each fraction condenses on the fractionating column and will be taught that they need to know this position with relation to the other fractions. Students will learn that the fractions have differing properties depending on where they condense and they are challenged to compare fractions by viscosity, length of hydrocarbon and boiling point. There are regular progress checks throughout the lesson to allow the students to check on their understanding.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students.
A fully-resourced lesson, which has been designed for GCSE students, and includes an engaging and informative lesson presentation (37 slides) and differentiated worksheets. This lesson explores the type of cell division known as meiosis and focuses on the use of key terminology so that students can apply their knowledge to any organism that carries out this division, and not just humans. For this reason, time is taken at the start of the lesson to go over the meaning of the terms, diploid and haploid. Students are also taught how to think about the quantity of DNA inside a cell in terms of n, so that they can see and understand how this quantity changes through the cell cycle. They are encouraged to fill in a table at each stage of the cycle to show the quantity of DNA. In this way, students will understand how a diploid parent cell goes through interphase and as a result of DNA replication, the quantity of DNA is 4n as the first meiosis division is about to start. Although this could be viewed as high end knowledge, the format of this lesson should allow all abilities to understand and therefore have more chance of being successful with meiosis questions. Students are encouraged to think for themselves to work out how many daughter cells will result at the end of two divisions and to consider the quantity of DNA found inside those cells. At this stage of the lesson, students have to summarise all they have learnt into two key points (as shown on the cover image). The remainder of the lesson gives them the opportunity to apply their knowledge with a range of questions and it is not until right at the end that they are allowed to finally relate this cell division to humans.
Although this lesson has been primarily designed for GCSE students (14 - 16 year olds in the UK), it is highly suitable for A-level lessons, especially if a teacher wants to recap on this cell division before extending knowledge.
This lesson presentation looks at the carboxylic acids and focuses on the names, displayed formula, chemical formulae and reactions of this homologous series. The lesson begins with a bit of fun which gets enables the students to recognise that the functional group is COOH. A step by step guide is used to show the students how to draw the displayed formula for ethanoic acid, using the functional group before they apply their knowledge to draw the remaining acids in the first four. This series are connected by a general formula and students are shown how it is worked out for the alkanes and the alkenes so that students can work it out for the acids. Moving forwards, the reactions of these acids is shown and related to the reactions of acids that was previously learnt. Students will recall how to write the name of the salt and the balanced symbol equation.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students
This bundle of 5 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic B4 (Community level systems) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Ecosystems
Abiotic and biotic factors
Ecological relationships
The carbon cycle
The nitrogen cycle
Decay and decomposition
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. It is estimated that this bundle would cover about 3 week’s worth of lessons.
This is a fully-resourced lesson, designed for GCSE students, that lteaches students how to prove that mass is conserved in a chemical reaction and guides them in the explanation of why some reactions do not give equal masses when measured.
The lesson begins by introducing the law of the conservation of mass. Students will learn that they can expect questions which challenge them to prove that mass is conserved through the use of the relative formula mass. Therefore, the next section of the lesson focuses on the skills associated with this calculation and looks at more different formulae such as those with brackets. Students are given an opportunity to check their skills before trying to prove mass is conserved in three chemical reactions. All questions have displayed mark schemes so that students can assess their understanding. The rest of the lesson looks at instances of when the mass of the reactants does not equal the mass of the products. A practical method for the decomposition of copper carbonate is provided if the teacher wants to use it, so that students can collect results which show this difference in mass. Discussions are encouraged in order to get students to offer explanations as to why the mass of the products is lower. Once the gas has been identified, students are further challenged to consider apparatus that could be used to collect and record the results to again prove conservation.
This bundle of 19 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic B6 (Global challenges) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Biology specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Investigating distribution by sampling
Increasing biodiversity
Loss of biodiversity
Selective breeding
Genetic engineering
Producing a GMO
Health and disease
Communicable diseases
Stopping the spread of diseases
Plant diseases
Plant defences
The Human Body’s Defences
Blood clotting
The uses of vaccines
Monoclonal antibodies
Antibiotics
Developing drugs
Non-communicable diseases
Treating cardiovascular diseases
Organ transplants
Stem cells in medicine
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 10 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic C2 (Bonding, structure and properties of matter) of the AQA Trilogy GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Formation of ions
Ionic bonding
Ionic compounds
Covalent bonding
Metallic bonding
Simple molecular substances
Polymers and Giant covalent structures
Allotropes of carbon
States of matter
Changing state
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 16 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic C5 (Monitoring and controlling chemical reactions) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Chemistry specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Theoretical yield
Percentage yield
Atom economy
Concentration of solution
Titrations
Titration calculations
Gas calculations
Rates of reaction
The Collision theory
Temperature and the rate of reaction
Concentration and the rate of reaction
Particle size and the rate of reaction
Catalysts and the rate of reaction
Reversible reactions
Temperature and pressure and equilibrium
Choosing reaction conditions
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 lesson has been designed for GCSE students and looks at the key details of two methods that are used to make ethanol, fermentation and the hydration of ethene. Some students may believe that the sole use of ethanol is for alcoholic drinks so the first part of the lesson uses a quick competition to introduce some additional uses. There are a number of these competitions that run during the lesson, in order to maintain engagement but also to introduce key terms and check on understanding in alternative forms. The details of each of the reactions are discussed and related topics are tested through questions and tasks, such as the students being challenged to write symbol equations and adding state symbols and to remember the identification test for carbon dioxide. The final part of the lesson plays one final competition, which is a battle between all of the students to spot which of the two reactions is being described by a clue.
This fully-resources lesson looks at the phenomenon known as the Bohr effect and describes and explains how an increased carbon dioxide concentration affects the dissociation of oxyhaemoglobin. The PowerPoint has been designed to cover the second part of point 3.1.2 (j) of the OCR A-level Biology A specification and continually ties in with the previous lesson on the role of haemoglobin.
The lesson begins with a terminology check to ensure that the students can use the terms affinity, oxyhaemoglobin and dissociation. In line with this, they are challenged to draw the oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve and are reminded that this shows how oxygen associates with haemoglobin but how it dissociates at low partial pressures. Moving forwards, a quick quiz is used to introduce Christian Bohr and the students are given some initial details of his described effect. This leads into a series of discussions where the outcome is the understanding that an increased concentration of carbon dioxide decreases the affinity of haemoglobin for oxygen. The students will learn that this reduction in affinity is a result of a decrease in the pH of the cell cytoplasm which alters the tertiary structure of the haemoglobin. Opportunities are taken at this point to challenge students on their prior knowledge of protein structures as well as the bonds in the tertiary structure. The lesson finishes with a series of questions where the understanding and application skills are tested as students have to explain the benefit of the Bohr effect for an exercising individual. These questions are differentiated to allow students of differing abilities to access the work and to be challenged
This bundle of 2 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic C3.2 (Energetics) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Distinguish between endothermic and exothermic reactions
Draw and label a reaction profile for both reactions
Explain activation energy
Calculate energy changes in a chemical reaction by considering bond making and bond breaking energies
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 4 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic C5.2 (Equilibria) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Some reactions can be reversed by altering reaction conditions
Dynamic equilibrium in a closed system
Predict the effect of changing reaction conditions on equilibrium position
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 3 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic B3.3 (Maintaining internal environments) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
The importance of maintaining a constant internal environment in response to internal and external change
Explain how insulin controls blood sugar levels
Explain how glucagon controls blood sugar levels
Compare type I and II diabetes
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 detailed and engaging lesson uses a range of tasks, discussion points and quick competitions to explore how the structure of metals is related to their properties. The lesson begins by providing the melting points for four metals and challenging the students to work out why mercury would be considered to be the odd one out. This task enables students to recognise that most metals are solid at room temperature and then the next part of the lesson guides students through explaining how this is related to the structure. The range of quick competitions are used to maintain engagement but also to introduce new terms such as lattice and delocalised so that students can recognise these in descriptions and use them accurately in their own. Students will recall that metals are good conductors of electricity and heat and now will be able to explain this with reference to the free electrons. Progress checks are written into the lesson at regular intervals so understanding can be checked at critical points and misconceptions addressed. The final part of the lesson makes link to related topics such as alloys and naming compounds.
This lesson has been written for GCSE aged students.
This bundle of 10 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic C1e (Chemical formulae, equations and calculations) of the Edexcel iGCSE Chemistry specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Writing word equations
Writing balanced symbol equations (with state symbols)
Calculate relative formula masses
Know that the mole is the unit for the amount of a substance
Understand how to carry out calculations involving amount, relative atomic and formula mass
Calculate reacting masses
Calculate percentage yield
Know the terms empirical formula and molecular formula and be able to calculate both
Calculate concentration of solutions
Calculate gas volumes
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.