Spark Science provides high quality science educational resources for secondary school teachers.
From dual-coding, literacy and reading tasks, dyslexic friendly backgrounds, and continual Assessment for Learning (AfL) tasks embedded into all our lessons, Spark lessons will increase engagement, participation and understanding for your students.
Spark Science provides high quality science educational resources for secondary school teachers.
From dual-coding, literacy and reading tasks, dyslexic friendly backgrounds, and continual Assessment for Learning (AfL) tasks embedded into all our lessons, Spark lessons will increase engagement, participation and understanding for your students.
A comprehensive, engaging, challenging and interactive lesson package designed with non-science/non-chemistry specialist teachers in mind!
This lesson contains:
Lesson powerpoint - including teacher notes and answers in “notes” section
Student led lesson worksheet (including practical worksheet)
Teacher answer sheet
Practical risk assessment/order form
Lesson resources contain:
In-built challenge tasks throughout
In-built scaffolded learning for lower abilities
Various activites to assess progress and understanding that you can tailor to fit any class or available resources
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
Describe what a pure substance is
Identify examples of pure substances in every day life
Identify pure substances from particle diagrams and examples
Carry out a practical investigation to identify pure substances
This lesson contains a student led lesson and practical which focuses on students learning through discussion and investigation.
Resources and slides ask students the key questions and develops ideas and concepts from the ground up and address common issues, mistakes and misconceptions.
This lesson contains AFL tasks which require mini-whiteboards, but can be adapted if these are not available.
A comprehensive, complete, engaging and challenging set of lessons and activities to teach students the basics of elements, compounds, mixtures and chemical formulas. This scheme/package is designed with non-science/non-chemistry specialist teachers in mind!
Lessons included in this bundle:
Elements and Compounds
Chemical Formulas
Counting atoms in a Formula
Pure Substances
Mixtures
Included in each lesson:
Lesson powerpoint - including teacher notes and answers in “notes” section
Student-led lesson worksheet
Teacher answer sheet
Lesson resources contain:
In-built stretch and challenge tasks throughout
In-built scaffolded learning for lower abilities
Various AFL activities to assess progress and understanding that you can tailor to fit any class or available resources (these include “think, pair, share”, molymod activities, mini-whiteboard quizzes)
Relevant risk assessments for any practical work (updated as of March 2023)
By the end of the topic, students will:
Know what an “element” and a “compound” is
Describe the difference between an element and a compound
Know what an “atom” and a “molecule” are
Describe the difference between an atom and a molecule
Draw/make particle diagrams and models to represent elements, compounds, single atoms and molecules
Understand why scientists use chemical symbols to represent elements
Identify simple elements from their chemical symbols
Identify elements in a chemical formula
Classify chemical formulas as elements or compounds
Count the number of atoms in a basic formula
Identify elements in a chemical formula
Count the number of atoms in formulas containing subscripts
Count the number of atoms in formulas containing multipliers
Describe what a pure substance is
Identify examples of pure substances in everyday life
Identify pure substances from particle diagrams and examples
Carry out a practical investigation to identify pure substances
Describe what a mixture is
Give examples of mixtures in everyday life
Identify mixtures from particle diagrams and examples
Draw/make models representing mixtures
A comprehensive, engaging and interactive lesson package designed with non-science/non-chemistry specialist teachers in mind!
This lesson contains:
Lesson powerpoint - including teacher notes and answers in “notes” section
Student led lesson worksheet
Teacher answer sheet
Elements, Compounds and Mixtures printable decision tree
Lesson resources contain:
In-built challenge tasks throughout
In-built scaffolded learning for lower abilities
Various activites to assess progress and understanding that you can tailor to fit any class or available resources
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
Describe what a mixture is
Give examples of mixtures in every day life
Identify mixtures from particle diagrams and examples
This lesson contains a student led lesson sheet, with the focus being on students learning through doing, practicing skills and identifying patterns and reasons themselves. Resources and slides ask students the key questions and develops ideas and concepts from the ground up and address common issues, mistakes and misconceptions.
This lesson contains AFL tasks which require mini-whiteboards and molymods, but can be adapted if these are not available.
This is the 5th lesson in the “Working as a Scientist 2” Year 8 topic.
This lesson teaches students how to identify relationships in graphs using the line of best fit and how to describe trends in graphs. It also covers the ways we can improve our confidence in graphs/data, how to deal with outliers, and how to read values from a graph using the line of best fit.
It is a comprehensive lesson, with large amounts of student participation on mini-whiteboards (so loads of chances for AFL and intervention if needed). The lesson can be lenghtened or shortened with slides cut out depending on student ability and prior knowledge.
Students can then practice their skills independently by drawing and analysing their own graph on the student worksheet.
Lesson resources:
Lesson powerpoint with all answers built in automatically, various mini-whiteboard AFL tasks for students, discussion activities, scaffolding and dual coding to support lower ability/EAL/AEN students.
Student worksheet PDF
Student worksheet answers PDF
Lesson objectives:
Identify linear and directly proportional relationships
Take readings from a graph using a line of best fit
Describe how to improve confidence in conclusions made from graphs
For this lesson you will need mini-whiteboards
This complete lesson teaches students the parts of the microscope, how to use one, what they’re used for, and how to calculate magnification.
This lesson contains:
Complete lesson powerpoint, including mini-whiteboard AFL tasks for calculating magnification and full answers
Student handout sheet (with and without hints for AEN students)
Plenary task
Lesson Objectives
Name the parts of a microscope
Describe how to use a microscope to observe very small objects
Calculate the total magnification used to observe an object
View and focus objects under a microscope
This lesson is the sixth and final lesson in the “Space” topic and covers what solar and lunar total/partial eclipses are and why they happen. The lesson contains an optional class practical/demonstration of eclipses, AFL mini-whiteboard tasks to assess understanding, video task, and stretch and challenge tasks for higher ability students throughout.
This lesson is designed to be easy to teach, student led, and is ideal for non-specialist teachers.
This Lesson Contains:
Lesson powerpoint, including activity delivery instructions and tips for teachers, full answers, mini-class practical instructions, plenary task, AFL whiteboard tasks, and relevant video link
Student eclipses worksheet (PDF) and answer sheet (PDF)
Lesson Objectives:
State what a solar and lunar eclipse are
Explain how solar and lunar eclipses happen
This bundle contains all the lessons you need to cover the KS3 English National Curriculum on Space.
These lessons are designed to be easy to teach (especially for non-specialists), interactive, student-led, and AfL filled/driven.
These lessons contain video links, various online simulations for students to use to aid their understanding and sense of wonder, PDF worksheets, complete PDF answer sheets, answers to all powerpoint questions (either incorperated into the powerpoint slides or in the notes sections), teacher delivery notes/tips in the “notes” sections of the powerpoints, stretch and challenge tasks for higher ability students throughout each lesson, various AfL tasks (e.g. finger voting/mini-whiteboards/true-false quizzes), and plenary tasks for each lesson.
This bundle contains the following lessons:
The Night Sky
The Solar System
Formation of the Solar System
Why we get Seasons
Phases of the Moon
Eclipses
This is a Year 7 lesson that covers plant cells, their components, their functions, how they differ to animal cells, and how to observe plant cells under a microscope.
This Lesson Contains
Lesson powerpoint with complete answers, plenary activity, interactive game for teaching rote learning of parts of the plant cell, challenge task, practical follow up questions
Student worksheet and complete and incomplete versions with answers (PDF and editable versions)
Practical instructions
Practical risk assessment (PDF and editable word versions)
Lesson Objectives
Identify parts of a plant cell from a diagram
Describe the function of each part of a plant cell
Compare the similarities and difference between an animal and plant cell
Use a microscope to view plant cells (pond weed)
A full lesson outlining the basic GCSE structure of the atom, the position and charges of the subatomic particles inside it. A part of the course which is sometimes difficult to teach in a fun and interactive/discovery based way, this lesson will help students to discover information and make connections themselves. Students will hopefully not only learn the charges and masses and positions of subatomic particles, but gain an appreciation of scale and relative mass, as well as understand some of the reasons behind the structure of the atom and the reason we draw it the way we do.
This lesson includes:
Powerpoint - including key notes, delivery tips, modelling ideas, interactive class activities and key hinge/get-them-thinking questions, tips on dealing with common misconceptions
Multiple choice interactive plenary activity
Full answers
Lesson Objectives
Describe what a subatomic particle is
Describe the structure of an atom in terms of subatomic particles
Give the positions, relative mass and charge of the three subatomic particles
A full lesson resource teaching students how to use the periodic table (mass number and atomic number) to count the numbers of subatomic particles in an atom. This lesson also covers the definition of “isotopes”. This lesson also dual codes this information with atomic diagrams and periodic table squares to cement student understanding of where these numbers come from, while also being a great support for EAL and SEN students. Great for “I do, we do, you do” activities and can be easily added to and extended if more examples and practice are needed by a given class.
Lesson contains:
Lesson powerpoint, including whole class whiteboard AFL activities, core hinge/thinking questions, full answers and notes to aid in lesson delievery and structure
Student worksheet
Exam style questions with mark scheme
Lesson Objectives:
Know what the numbers on the periodic table mean
Use the periodic table to count the numbers of protons, neutrons and electrons in an atom
Predict atomic number and mass number from the numbers of subatomic particles
Define the term “isotope” and identify examples of them
This lesson is a KS3 biology lesson covering the structure of the lungs, the basic process of gas exchange in the lungs, and the differences in composition between inhaled and exhaled air.
This lesson contains:
Risk assessment for lung dissection demonstration
Risk assessment for student practical
Student worksheet (PDF and Word)
Student worksheet answers (PDF and Word)
Lesson powerpoint - including gas exchange animation!
Lesson Objectives:
Name the key parts of the lungs
Define the process of gas exchange
Describe how parts of the gas exchange system are adapted to their function
Compare inhaled and exhaled air
WS: Read data from pie charts and draw conclusions
A comprehensive, engaging, challenging and interactive lesson package designed with non-science/non-physics specialist teachers in mind!
This lesson teaches students the difference between weight and mass, and how to calculate weight using the “LESS” method.
This resource contains:
Lesson powerpoint - including, full answers, mini-whiteboard AFL, practice activities, full “I do, we do, you do” guided slides for calculations
Student practice worksheet (PDF and editable version)
Teacher answer sheet (PDF and editable version)
Lesson resources contain:
In-built challenge tasks throughout
In-built scaffolded learning for lower abilities
Various activites to assess progress and understanding that you can tailor to fit any class or available resources
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
Describe the difference between weight and mass
Calculate the weight of an object
Explain why weight is different on different planets
Students will work scientifically to:
Convert units
Calculate values using a calculator
Resources and slides ask students the key questions and develops ideas and concepts from the ground up and address common issues, mistakes and misconceptions.
This lesson contains AFL tasks which require mini-whiteboards, but can be adapted if these are not available.
This lesson is the second lesson in the “Space” topic and covers the structure of our solar system and the composition of the planets within it. The lesson contains various links to online videos, modelling software and simulations that really help students understand the vastness of space and allow them to explore the universe in which we live.
It also addresses the misconception around the distances between selestial objects, gives students the opportunity to describe strenghts and weaknesses in scientific models, and an activity to get students to identify patterns and trends in data about the planets.
This lesson is designed to be easy to teach, student led and is ideal for non-specialist teachers.
This Lesson Contains:
Lesson powerpoint, including activity delivery instructions for teachers, full answers, 3 main student activity tasks to choose from, plenary task, AFL whiteboard task and discussion activities
Student Activity Worksheet and Answer Sheet (PDF) (Main task Option C)
Lesson Objectives:
Describe the structure of our Solar System
Compare position and composition of the planets of the Solar System
Identify trends and patterns in data and draw conclusions
This lesson is lesson 6 in the Year 8 “Working as a Scientist 2” topic.
This lesson focuses on how we communicate science to different audiences, and how we can tailor our writing and presentation of information to suit them.
This lesson is designed to be a “click and teach” lesson with minimal planning needed from the teacher, which is great for non-specialist teachers.
Lesson resources contain:
Lesson powerpoint containing class activities and instructions, teacher delivery notes in “notes” section, discussion slides and full answers.
PDF copies of different types of scientific communication (A childrens science book, newspaper article and scientific journal article) all about melting ice caps.
PDF copy of a simple scientific journal article for students to adapt about the effects of temperature on seed germination (Students should have already looked at germination in Year 7)
NOTE: All example pieces of scientific writing are all tailor made for this lesson and are of the correct reading age for Year 8 students.
Lesson Outcomes:
Describe the key features of effective scientific communication
Describe how to adapt communication for different audiences
This lesson covers examples of specialised cells, their adaptations and how those adaptations make them suited for their function.
**This lesson resource includes: **
Complete lesson powerpoint
Student led circus investigation task sheet (PDF and editable versions)
Answer sheet (PDF and editable versions)
Information cards for task on different specialised cells (PDF and editable versions)
Automatically checking multiple choice plenary quiz (great for mini-whiteboard AFL)
Lesson Objectives
Know what a specialised cell and an adaptation is
Give some examples of specialised cells
Identify and describe the adaptations of some specialised cells
Explain how an adaptation makes a specialised cell good at its function
This is a good practice worksheet for lessons or homework to get students to practice drawing dot-and cross diagrams, drawing 3D structures of molecules and ions, identify molecular shapes and bond angles.
Comes with worksheet and completed answer sheet.
Designed for the OCR A A-level course but will be applicable to all A-level chemistry courses.
This lesson is the fourth lesson in the “Space” topic and covers why we get different length days and different temperatures at different times of year. The lesson contains a mini-student practical, animated gifs to illustrate concepts clearly, AFL miniwhiteboard tasks to assess understanding, and a link to an online modelling software that really helps students understand the changing angles and position of the sun at different times of year.
This lesson is designed to be easy to teach, student led and is ideal for non-specialist teachers.
This Lesson Contains:
Lesson powerpoint, including activity delivery instructions and tips for teachers, full answers, gif illustrations, simulation link, plenary task, AFL whiteboard tasks and discussion activities
Lesson Objectives:
Explain the apparent motion of objects in the sky
Explain why hours of daylight and temperature change during the year
Describe seasonal changes in different places on Earth
This lesson is the fifth lesson in the “Space” topic and covers why the moon appears to change shape in our sky and the names of the phases of the moon. The lesson contains a mini-student practical, AFL mini-whiteboard tasks to assess understanding, challenge tasks for higher ability students, and a link to an online modelling software that really helps students understand the changing phases of the moon.
This lesson is designed to be easy to teach, student led and is ideal for non-specialist teachers.
This Lesson Contains:
Lesson powerpoint, including activity delivery instructions and tips for teachers, full answers, simulation link, mini-class practical (and optional alternatives), plenary task, AFL whiteboard tasks and discussion activities
Student phases of the moon worksheet (PDF) and answer sheet (PDF)
Lesson Objectives:
Name/Sketch/Describe the phases of the Moon
Explain why you see phases of the Moon
An interactive powerpoint resource designed to be used for distance learning from home.
Also contains interactive questions, a cheat sheet of common ions and practice questions.
Students should be able to:
Predicting the formula of salts from their names and ions
A short, engaging lesson (ideal to complete before a mid-topic summary) designed with non-science/non-physics specialist teachers in mind!
This lesson teaches students about what a field is and how forces are felt within fields for different non-contact forces (especially gravitational fields and magnetic fields).
This resource contains:
Lesson powerpoint - including full answers, mini-practical with instructions for students
Lesson resources contain:
In-built challenge tasks throughout
A mini “discovery” style practical
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
Describe what a “field” is
Describe the effects of fields
Resources and slides ask students the key questions and develops ideas and concepts from the ground up and address common issues, mistakes and misconceptions.
