Students have to choose a drug to research - some focus questions are provided. They then have to use the information they have found out about the effects of their drug to write a 'lab rat diary'. Imagining they are a scientist administering the drug to a rat, they have to make a note of what they would observe. The lab rat is from the Cannon website. This activity will take about 3-4 lessons, plus homework. Access to a computer room and library a must.

Current, voltage and circuits HW sheet.

I chop these up laminate them and then hand them out on envelopes for students in groups to sort into sustainable and non-sustainable. might not be as clear cut as it first seems - a good starter to generate lots of discussion!

Research project where students learn by carrying out an inquiry as to whether they could live on their favorite food alone. Requires them to copy out a food pyramid, find out about different sources of nutrients and investigate deficiencies. Access to computers and reference books required.

Light loop card game. Light and sound RAFT activity, (students have to choose which activity/row they would like to complete) and lights and sound venn diagram.

Gas Tests. Pupils will need to have learnt the tests for carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen in a previous lessons. They need to plan a simple practical using this knowledge to identify mystery substance A and B as calcium and calcium carbonate. You will require 1M HCl, limewater, splints and marble chips and calcium labelled as A and B. I usually dish out the calcium and marble chips to the students once they have finished their plan to avoid them taking too much!

A simple practical aimed at helping students to make a prediction. Pour 20mL of water into a 100mL measuring cylinder, add a squirt of washing up liquid and ¼ of a Berocca tablet, (any effervescent tablet will work – I just used this one as it doesn’t present any health and safety issues). I provided each group with a bag of Berocca tablets already broken into quarters, so they had to work out how many ¼ s made a ½ etc. It is a good idea to do this in a tray as it may overflow – although usually it runs out of water first, which is another good talking point.

Simple worksheet for pupils just starting to use a Bunsen burner. It should be folded in half and pupils work in pairs to either complete the practical on the one side or assess their peer using the prompts on the other side. You will need to demo how to use a Bunsen before pupils begin the activity.

A fun way of getting pupils to look at graphs in Science. Could be used as a starter or pleanary. Print the interpreting graphs activity out and laminate to make four different colour, double sided cards. Organise pupils into groups of two or three and provide each group with a set of four cards. Introduce the activity using the first page of the Power Point. Pupils use the clues on the back of the cards to help them describe what is happening in each graph, answers can then be shared as a class using the Power Point.

Summary and literacy assignment in which students have to use their knowledge of ocean acidification and the reactions of carbonates to respond to a letter from Nemo.

These are tasks aimed to accompany the awesome NASA Amazing Space website. www.amazing-space.stsci.edu. Print out one of the star witness articles of the class to read. Then get cracking with the tasks. You will find it useful to have copies of the Hubble Space Telescope downloadable PDF from the capture --> picture it, part of the website too.

A lesson aimed at Year 7 -8 pupils with a split focus on learning the colour of Universal Indicator at different pHs and the role of an environmental chemist. Pupils imagine they are environmental chemists working for Scottish Water, responding to reports of dead fish being discovered in a loch. Scottish water has some nice little animations that help demonstrate the role of environmental chemists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWLYN1MmnQE . In the first part of the lesson you will need to provide pupils with clearly labeled solutions of strong and weak acids and alkalis, plus a neutral solution (I usually use bench or 1M hydrochloric, ethanoic, water, ammonia and sodium hydroxide). Pupils combine these in spotting tiles with universal indicator solution to determine the different colours at different pH. You can then share and self mark their findings. In the second part of the lesson provide pupils with water samples taken from sites A to D. A and B should contain no lead and be only slightly acidic, C should be more acidic and contain lead nitrate solution (lead and acid are common contaminants from copper extraction). I usually make D contain slightly less lead and slightly less acidic (it is nice to discuss with pupils why this might be the case/dilution). Pupils test with potassium iodide (for lead) and Universal Indicator. In a 1hr/50min lesson there should just be time to summarise the lesson’s learning and share conclusions. Extension challenge for early finishers also included.

Worksheets that are useful for pupils to stick into their books when they start the AQA GCSE Chemistry course. They list and give examples of all the different command words, plus contain a break down of what the papers will be like and the types of questions they will contain. Helpful to refer to when carrying out past paper walk and talks etc. In Word for ease of editing and PDF for printing.

Simple activity where students have to use the clues in the text to construct a food web. They then use their food web to answer questions. Learning objectives provided on a ppt. Students will have had to do some work on food chains and food webs and key terms previously. They will need a chunky pen to draw food web arrows and a large piece of paper to stick pictures onto. I usually hand these out already cut up in envelopes. You could laminate them and give the students blue tack to hold them in place.

Selection of solutions resources. Including two ppts of core notes. Key words worksheet, HW work sheet and a couple of sheets relating to possible pracs and demos. Also a stepping stones frame work for students to use to plan a method for obtaining pure salt from rock salt. Beat the teacher is a simple plenary - you read the script out loud, students put their hands up when they hear a mistake, but most importantly offer a correction.

Aimed at helping to teach the difference between chemical and physical changes.

A selection of resources aimed at making rocks a bit more interesting! Please read the Teacher Instructions sheet about how to use each resource - I promise I've kept it brief!

Resources aimed a teaching pupils about/summarising chemical reactions (reactants and products, conservations of mass etc.), but also helping to develop revision technique - specifically the skill of identifying the most important points in a text and condensing them down into bullet points. I usually set the Chemical Reactions Notes Homework first and then plan the subsequent based upon the responses! One of the nice things about this homework is that it is super quick to mark because pupils are limited to writing four short sentences. In the follow up lesson I have lots of discussion with the pupils about how they were able to determine the most important points - what clues does the text contain? For example - subtitles, key words in bold/a different colour. We then complete the other two worksheets.

Blank template pupil’s can use to create a newpaper front page.

To help ease Year 11 pupils into revision, a chart of short activities they can engage in. Best printed on A3.