This New Zealand version of snakes and ladders encourages people to get to know each other, and thus helping them to start building the necessary connections in order to work together more effectively. Each square on the gameboard asks players to answer a question about themselves eg. Does your family have any traditions? What are they? What is something you can’t go a day without? Who is your favourite villain? Who is your favourite teacher? Why? What is your favourite thing about school? What is your least favourite thing about school? The New Zealand Education Review Office advises that “a learning community characterised by whanaungatanga and manaakitanga creates the challenge and support needed to develop learning to learn capabilities and achieve successful learning outcomes.” Thus, it is important that we build a sense of whanaungatanga for our students in order to help them learn effectively. Experiencing strong connections to peers that foster a family-like environment where students can feel that they belong, makes a significant impact for students both personally and academically. In addition, students are often asked to work in groups with students outside their peer groups, yet, we know that effective collaboration requires a degree of trust and psychological safety. WHAT WILL YOU NEED? One A3 printed game board for every group of students (2 - 4 player recommended). One die for every group A unique counter for every player HOW DO WE PLAY? Players place their counters on the start square. Before the game can start each player will roll one die, the player who throws the highest number will be the one to have the first turn. The players will move their pieces following the numbers on the board, Ie. If a player rolls a 4, then the player would move their piece four places. Players must answer any questions they land on. If not, they forfeit their roll and stay in the same place until their next roll. When a player lands on a square with the head of a tuna (eel), their playing piece will slide down to the square where the tail ends. When a player lands at the base of a ladder, they immediately move to the square at the top of the ladder. To win, a player must roll exactly the right number to land on the last square. Rolling a number too big means that the player has to reverse.

This game based on snakes and ladders includes a range of revision questions to help students discuss key definitions and concepts about genetic inheritance, genetic change and variation. Resource works best for students who are studying specialist biology. Concepts students will revise: Genes, chromosomes and basic inheritance Evolution through natural selection and sources of variation Population bottlenecks and the founder effect What you will need: Each student will need a counter (alternatively each student can use a coloured bead, self sculpted paper clip, etc.) Each group of students will need a die (alternatively use an app or website) Print a copy of the sheet for each group of students. How to use: Game can be played in groups of two to four students. Students can play this game open or closed book depending on their familiarity with the content. Students should check each other’s responses against their notes. An answer sheet is included. Questions included: What is the impact of linked genes on offspring variation? What is the difference between a genotype and a phenotype? How does migration affect a gene pool? How does genetic drift affect a gene pool? How does multiple allele systems work? What factors can change the allele frequency in a population? How does the founder effect genetic drift?? How does natural selection work? How does speciation occur? Explain how the ABO blood types are inherited? What is the difference between codominance and incomplete dominance? What does meiosis affect link genes? How does one determine if two genes are linked? How is genetic variation affected by the bottleneck effect? How is genetic variation affected by the founder effect? How are mutations inherited? Mutation and meiosis both introduce variation. How are the different? What is a pedigree diagram? Two parents with genotype GgHh were crossed. Are these genes linked if a 9:3:3:1 ratio resulted? How does meiosis introduce variation between offspring? What is the difference between a sister chromatid and a homologous chromosome? What is a sister chromatid? How is biological sex determined for humans? Explain how lethal alleles are maintained in a population? Why might the phenotype ratio in a dihybrid cross not result in the expected phenotype ratio? What is the difference between a haploid and a diploid cell? How does low genetic diversity affect endangered species’ ability to recover? Why might high genetic diversity in humans have been helpful during the COVID pandemic? Kauri lost 90% of its diversity…How does this affect their recovery from Kauri dieback? What concepts do you most need to revise? Why is reduced variation a problem for endangered species?

This is a template for students and teachers to work through together to scaffold a student inquiry. Students are asked to Generate questions Research questions Summarise research The resource works well if students have first generated a range of questions about a topic of their choice. The question game can really help with this.

Questioning is a critical life and learning skill. Yet many students are reluctant to formulate their own questions. In this fun game students work in groups of 2 to 4 to generate questions. Students can role model and help peers to formulate questions in the pseudo-safety of a game context. This game works well with students of all ages who are able to read and write. It has been enjoyed by students in both a primary and secondary context with great success. It is appropriate for ALL SUBJECT AREAS, social science, science, English, etc. How to use this game Determining what areas of a topic students are interested in. Generating questions for student inquiries, projects or research. Generating questions to use for revising a topic before a test or exam. Generating questions for extending deeper in to a topic that students have studied. Developing writing prompts for students.

Do your students need help to understand the scientific method? How can we help them understand what makes for good scientific evidence and what doesn’t? How can we help student understand scientific validity? How might we help our students to think more like scientists? This game is here to help! Students get points for selecting the most valid method for a provided hypothesis. Each hypothesis is based on real scientific study or a published scientific journal article. Articles were found based on biology and ecology topics that a group of high school students identified as areas they are interested in. Student reviews “It helped me see what a good method looks like and the type of words that are used.” “It helps to learn the appropriate language to use in these sorts of scientific works and how to measure how valid/reliable a method is.” Why play this game? It’s fun! Develop knowledge of scientific techniques. Promote discussion between students about scientific ideas including: * Discuss ethical issue in science * Discuss reliability and validity Develop scientific literacy. Introduce students to current scientific work. Provide different levels of challenge with the same resource. Improve scientific investigation skills.

This task is a mini physics project that requires students to apply their knowledge of sound to create a musical instrument. Students are asked to: Summarise key ideas about how instruments produce sound Describe the difference between wind/string instruments Create an instrument using scrap materials around the home Identify the notes that their instrument produces Refine and adjust their instrument to play particular notes Play a song with their instrument The resource is ideal for students working at different levels as the task gradually increases in difficulty. Teachers may choose to differentiate by providing access to only parts of this assessment based on student ability levels. The resource also includes links to additional supporting resources. This resources is well suited to set for students during home isolation, cross-curricular contexts, and project based learning contexts. Key skills students will practice in this task include: summarising, communicating scientific ideas, applying physics concepts in practice, thinking critically and creatively, problem solving, and understanding the design process.

Revise key genetics and variation concepts by playing Cranium! This resource provides instructions and resource materials for revising key vocabulary and simple concepts. Vocabulary and concepts include Mutation Phenotypes and genotypes Meiosis Natural, artificial and sexual selections Genes, alleles, chromosomes

This resources applies learning about acids and bases in a fun way, while building critical thinking skills. The task supports students to: Revise understandings about acids and bases. Record, organise and draw conclusions from data. Features of this task Differentiated Rubrics provided Practical is easily resourced Supports development of critical thinking Cognitive progression to ensure all students are challenged Includes practical instructions Caters for a range of curiculum levels Students are provided with a range of ‘Martian’ soil samples. They test the samples and analyse the results to draw conclusions about whether alien life would be possible given the soil conditions. This task could be used and adapted for a range of contexts including: Microbiology eg. extremophiles Biological adaptations Acids and bases Earth and space science

Access the resource grid: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1z9ZHreEcrd7ivQeyqUDRRzC37OnB-0wWROcS3vAlve0/edit?usp=sharing Explore and make sense of habits, environment and niche with the help of magical creatures expert Newt Scamander. The resource provides: A range of activities at different levels of difficulty Student choice A range of learning modes A fun context A self assessment rubric

Learning Objective: Deconstruct artworks by using algebra This lesson helps students make sense of how the world can be represented with equations. By combing art and algebra, to learning areas that students commonly hold as opposites, students are able to gain a much better appreciation of the role that algebra plays in making sense of the world. Features of this lesson: - Differentiation - Cross-curricular links - E-learning

Set of 32 superhero cards with their genotypes so that your class can predict superhero baby traits. Great way to demonstrate inheritance, alleles, homozygous, heterozygous, punnet squares etc.

Use an angry bird backdrop to calculate the linear equations, parabolas etc. Or do it the other way around... Give them the formula and ask if you hit!

Pythagoras and Trigonometry revision based on military examples. Great to engage boys in class however the girls in my classes all seemed very interested too!

Calculate the dimensions of some of the world's most extreme sky scrapers by using standard measurement forumalae

Colourful powerpoint to revise/teach BEDMAS/BIDMAS/BODMAS using the Matrix movie. Would work well with a few youtube video clips to interest students - especially Neo dodgint the bullets... Has theory notes, problems to solve, starter, main and plenary.

Superhero Factors Activity ppt: Use Optimus Prime Number, Penelope Perfect number, Multiple man and Fraction Woman to revise prime numbers, perfect numbers and multiples and factors. Bright colourful pop art presentation.

Differentiated worksheet to introduce students to sampling with a quadrat. This can lead on to more detailed sampling or dicussion of habitats and environments, food webs KW: quadrat, sampling, percentage cover, organism, species, environment, habitat, food webs

Differentiated worksheet to help students learn the difference between environments and habitats. KW: habitat environment organism

Differentiated starer activity for low literacy classes.

Lion king foodweb activity. Kids love when you play them some of the movie first (from you tube). Also requires students to use key words omnivore, herbivore, producer, consumer, etc.