That said, outdoor science is not automatically better than indoor science. It requires thought, planning and a clear sense of what you want children to get from it. Done well, it extends what happens in the classroom and gives children experiences that stay with them. Done poorly, it is just a walk around the playground with clipboards.

This post covers the practical side: where to go, what to teach, what to bring, and what to do when things do not go to plan.

You Do Not Need to Leave the School

The most common barrier teachers mention is the difficulty of organising off-site visits. That is understandable, but it is worth separating two things: leaving the school, and going outside. Most outdoor science does not require you to do the first.

Your school grounds, however limited, will offer something. A patch of grass, a wall, a few bushes, a corner where leaves collect. Even a largely concrete playground has ants, weeds, and a sky. For topics like habitats, materials, seasonal change and working scientifically, the grounds are often enough.

If you are in a school with more space, think beyond the obvious. The path to the school gate, the edges of the building, any area that is left unmanaged. These patches tend to support more wildlife than a well-kept lawn. Find out whether there are parks, allotments or green spaces within walking distance, and check the school’s policy on off-site visits before you plan anything.

What Works Well Outside, and When

Some topics have obvious outdoor connections. Others are less obvious but work just as well.

Plants and growing. The whole unit benefits from going outside. Observing seeds germinating, identifying wild plants, comparing habitats, watching pollinators on flowers. If your school has a garden or raised beds, so much the better. If not, containers and window boxes on a south-facing wall can cover most of what you need.

Living things and habitats. Turn over a stone. Look under bark. Sweep a net through long grass. The school grounds almost always have something to find, and children remember what they find themselves far more clearly than what they see in a photograph.

Seasonal change. Best tracked over time rather than in a single visit. A regular ten-minute walk around the same part of the grounds, recording what children notice, builds a genuine understanding of how environments change. Easy to set up, low effort to maintain, and the data children collect is their own.

Weather and Earth science. Rain gauges, wind vanes, shadow tracking, cloud observation. These need to happen outside by definition, and most of the equipment can be made by the children before they go out.

Forces. Ramps, paper aeroplanes, testing grip on different surfaces with a forcemeter. Plenty of forces work is easier outside where space is not a constraint.

Materials. Testing waterproofing, comparing surfaces, looking at what different materials are used in the built environment. A walk around the school building can cover a lot of ground here.

Working scientifically. Outdoor contexts tend to produce better enquiry than indoor ones, partly because the variables are less controlled and children have to think harder about what they are actually measuring. A fair test in the playground, where the wind picks up or a cloud passes over, is a different challenge from one done on a table in a quiet classroom.

When Things Do Not Go to Plan

This section tends to get left out of posts about outdoor science, which is probably why teachers are sometimes caught out.

Managing a class outside is harder than managing one inside. The space is bigger, the distractions are real, and children who are generally fine in a classroom can become difficult to redirect outdoors. Worth being honest about this with yourself before you plan, particularly if you are a trainee or an early-career teacher. Short, structured activities work better than open-ended ones until you know how your class behaves outside.

The weather will not cooperate. Plan for it. If rain is forecast, either postpone or use it: rain catchers, puddle measurements, observations of how animals respond to wet conditions. Having a clear indoor alternative ready means you are not scrambling on the day.

Children find things you did not expect. This is mostly good. Occasionally it is not. Know what you will do if children find something dead, something that wriggles, or something that causes an argument. Brief your teaching assistant before you go out.

Equipment disappears. Hand lenses end up in pockets. Clipboards get left in the mud. Keep a count of what goes out and what comes back. Assign equipment monitors if it helps.

A Kit List For Outdoor Learning

The exact equipment depends on the activity, but some things will always be useful:

• Clipboards, paper and pencils. Pencils rather than pens in wet conditions.
• Hand lenses. Cheap plastic ones are fine for most purposes. Pocket microscopes (the kind that clip over a phone camera) add something when you want a closer look.
• Small pots and clear bags for collecting specimens temporarily. Make sure children know what goes back before the end of the session.
• Tape measures and string. Useful for measuring and for marking out quadrats.
• White trays. Invaluable for minibeast hunts. Children can see what they have found without things escaping.
• A tablet or phone for identification and photography. iNaturalist and PictureThis are both reliable for plant and invertebrate identification, and children find them genuinely engaging to use.
• Wipes and hand sanitiser. Non-negotiable.

Store consumables in a labelled plastic box that can live outside if needed. Assigning children to bring it out and bring it back in builds a bit of routine around outdoor sessions.

Identification Tools Worth Having

Six years ago this section would have listed printed laminated guides, and those still have a place. But the plant identification apps have improved considerably. PictureThis and iNaturalist will both identify a plant from a photograph reliably enough for primary purposes, and children are often faster with them than adults.

iNaturalist has the added benefit of contributing to real scientific data about species distribution, which is worth mentioning to children. Knowing that their observation goes into a database used by ecologists tends to make them take the recording more seriously.

Google Lens is also useful. Also consider AI tools for teacher use – Gemini and ChatGPT will examine any images taken.

For invertebrates, the Field Studies Council produces fold-out identification charts that are hard to improve on. Worth ordering a class set if you do regular outdoor science.

Setting Something Up for the Long Term

If your school is at the point of thinking about what to establish rather than just what to do this term, a few things are worth the investment.

An outdoor science box. A large wheeled plastic box containing the kit above, stored somewhere accessible. The value is that outdoor science stops requiring special organisation; it becomes something that can happen on short notice.

Raised beds or containers. Even a few large pots on a hard surface will support plants unit work across the year. They do not need a dedicated garden coordinator to maintain; they need one member of staff to take ownership and a class to water them.

A nature area. Leaving a patch of ground uncut, adding a log pile, putting up a bird box and an insect hotel. None of this requires significant budget or heavy labour. What it does require is someone protecting it from the lawnmower. The curriculum links are substantial: habitats, invertebrates, plant life cycles, pollination, seasonal change.

A school pond. Worth mentioning separately because nothing else generates the same range of biological observation. Even a small pond, properly maintained, will have pond skaters, water boatmen, and sometimes tadpoles within a season. Check your school’s liability position and ensure appropriate supervision, but do not let this put you off if there is a realistic space for one.

Setting up a space for outdoor learning does not have to be expensive. Nicky Bolton (2020) describes setting up “Bucket School”, where 30 upturned buckets provide the seating for a class outside, as well as a container to collect samples in. Strong builders buckets are recommended!

A Note on Confidence

In my experience working with trainee teachers and early-career teachers, outdoor science is one of the areas where confidence is lowest, often for reasons that have nothing to do with subject knowledge. It is the management, the unpredictability, the sense that things could go wrong in front of 30 children with no walls around you.

That is a reasonable concern. But it gets easier quickly. The first time out tends to be the hardest. By the third or fourth session with the same class, you know how they behave, what structure they need, and which children need watching. The unpredictability that felt risky starts to feel like the point.

If your school has science on its improvement plan and outdoor learning is part of what you want to develop, I offer CPD support for primary schools on exactly this. You can find out more on the Science CPD page.

Useful Links

• Outdoor Classroom Day — annual day of action for outdoor learning, (21 May 2026)
• ASE Outdoor Science Collection
• Field Studies Council — identification resources and teacher support
• iNaturalist — species identification and citizen science recording
• PictureThis — plant identification app
• Learning through Landscapes
• RHS Campaign for School Gardening
• RSPB Wildlife Gardening
• Woodland Trust Outdoor Learning Pack
• PSTT CPD Unit: Thinking Beyond the Classroom

The post Taking Primary Science Outside appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

The frustration of “making do” with generic resources is a major contributor to teacher burnout. We want our lessons to be engaging and interactive, but the time cost of creating these resources from scratch usually outweighs the benefit. However, the landscape is shifting. We no longer have to rely solely on what big publishers provide. We can now create “homebrew” solutions that are perfectly tailored to our specific learning objectives.

Why This Works So Well for Classrooms

Interactive games like these fit naturally into lessons. Use them as a plenary task to consolidate learning whilst keeping energy high. Use them as a starter activity to activate prior knowledge. Send them home as revision activities; because they’re web-based, students can access them on any device. They’re particularly useful for homework because they’re more engaging than a worksheet and easier to mark in some ways, since the game itself provides immediate feedback.

Because these games are generated fresh, they feel new to children. They’re not recycled resources you’ve used for five years. And because you can tweak them, they’re genuinely tailored to what your class has actually learned.

Watch this video to learn more:

How to make a game

When entering the prompts in Google Gemini – make sure that you click on Tools and choose Canvas. And if you can, turn on Thinking instead of Fast.

In Canva Code just paste the prompt in. (From the front page of Canva, click on Canva AI and Code to access Canva Code).

Example Game Prompts to Copy

As shown in the video, here are some example prompts that allow you to create interactive science games in AI tools such as Google Gemini and Canva Code.

Simply copy and paste the prompts below into Gemini or Canva. Once entered, you can continue to refine your games by asking for edits until you get the game looking how you want.

1. Life Cycle Sequencer

Create an interactive educational game where students drag and drop stages of life cycles into the correct sequential order. Suitable for ages 7 to 11. 
LIFE CYCLE STAGES:
Butterfly: Egg → Caterpillar → Chrysalis → Butterfly
Frog: Egg/Spawn → Tadpole → Tadpole with legs → Froglet → Adult frog
Bean Plant: Seed → Germination/Sprout → Seedling → Flowering plant → Seed pod

2. States of Matter Sorter

Create an interactive science game where students sort everyday objects into solid, liquid, or gas categories. Suitable for ages 7 to 11.
OBJECTS TO SORT:
Solids: rock, book, ice cube, wooden block, metal spoon, apple
Liquids: water, milk, orange juice, oil, honey
Gases: air in balloon, steam, oxygen, helium, carbon dioxide

3. Food Chain Builder

Create an interactive ecology game where students arrange organisms into a correct food chain from producer to top predator, with visual energy transfer. Suitable for 8 to 11 year olds. 
EXAMPLE FOOD CHAINS:
Pond: Water plants → Tadpole → Small fish → Pike → Heron
Woodland: Oak tree → Caterpillar → Blue tit → Sparrowhawk
Ocean: Phytoplankton → Zooplankton → Small fish → Larger fish → Shark

4. Magnet Tester

Create an interactive science game where students predict which objects are magnetic, then test their predictions with a virtual magnet. Suitable for ages 7 to 11.
OBJECTS TO INCLUDE:
Magnetic: paper clip, steel scissors, iron nail, steel spoon, steel can, key
Non-magnetic: plastic ruler, wooden pencil, glass marble, rubber eraser, aluminum foil, copper coin

5. Classification Game

Create an interactive game for primary students about animal classification. Include categories for Mammals, fish, amphibians, Reptiles, and Birds. Students should be able to click a button to see a random vertebrate animal and then click the correct category to sort it. Suitable for ages 7 to 11.

6. Memory Game

Create a classic memory matching card game with animal pairs for primary school students. Suitable for ages 5 to 11. 
Animals to include: cat, dog, elephant, shark, goldfish, frog, penguin, butterfly, crocodile, snake, axolotl, bee.

You can also ask the AI to refine your game as you go along. Keep prompting it until you get the game how you want it.

Top Tip: You can ask the Ai to improve your prompt for you. Paste in your basic prompt with a request to “improve this”

Three Classroom Steps You Can Take Today

1. Start with one prompt. Don’t try to build your entire unit plan in one afternoon. Pick one concept from your upcoming lessons, say life cycles or states of matter, and paste one of the provided prompts into Gemini or Canva. Spend five minutes testing it. See how it feels in practice.
2. Plan where it fits in your lesson. Decide whether this game works best as a starter, during guided practice, or as a plenary. If it’s a plenary, how much time do you have? A two-minute game is very different from a ten-minute one. Ask the AI to adjust difficulty or add a time limit if needed.
3. Share the link or QR code with your class and gather feedback. Once you’ve used it with your class, ask children what worked, what didn’t, what they’d change. This does two things: it gives you genuine feedback to refine your game design, and it teaches children to think critically about digital tools and user experience. Next time you make a game, you’ll make a better one. What games would they suggest?

Personally, I think the combination of AI-generated games and something like PowerPoint or FigJam is enough for most teachers to move away from expensive proprietary software. It’s about working smarter, not harder. By using these tools, we can reclaim our planning time while still providing the high-quality, interactive science lessons our students deserve.

The post Make interactive Science Games with AI: 6 Prompts To Use appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

The stereotype of the “mad scientist” is a stubborn one. And for many children, especially girls, pupils from ethnic minorities, or those from backgrounds where science careers feel remote, it quietly sends a message: science isn’t for people like me. That’s a problem we can do something about.

This video is taken from my Udemy course on Teaching Primary Science: Access the full course here.

Why This Matters More Than We Might Think

Research stretching back to the 1960s and 70s shows that the vast majority of children drew male scientists when asked. Things have improved gradually, and in some studies more than half of children now draw female scientists. But we’re not there yet. And the same bias shows up in other places too.

A basic image search for “a scientist” still returns a heavy majority of white men peering down microscopes. AI image generators are catching up, but not quickly enough. One test with Adobe Firefly returned three male scientists and one female from a simple prompt. The default image of science in our culture is still narrow.

As primary teachers, we sit at an interesting point in this picture. The children we work with are forming their identities, including their sense of whether certain careers or subjects are “for them”. The good news is that we have more influence than we might realise, and it doesn’t require a curriculum overhaul.

Scientists Are Everywhere

One of the simplest shifts we can make is broadening the picture of what a scientist actually looks like. Not all scientists wear white coats or work in labs. There are scientists working in rainforests, on oil rigs, underwater, in the field, and at kitchen tables. Science is not a single look or a single kind of person.

There are also many inspiring scientists whose stories are genuinely worth telling. A few worth knowing about:

• Mary Anning, already in the national curriculum, whose fossil discoveries shaped our understanding of prehistoric life
• Sarah Gilbert, who led the team behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine
• Stephanie Kwolek, who invented Kevlar
• Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray work was crucial to understanding DNA
• Mae Jemison, the first Black female astronaut
• George Washington Carver, whose agricultural research transformed farming

The national curriculum does mention some scientists, but they tend to cluster in Years 2, 5 and 6. There is plenty of room to weave additional scientists into other year groups and topics, and doing so consistently sends a message: science has always been done by all kinds of people.

Making It Work Across the Curriculum

The practical approach here is to link a scientist to each unit of work. Rather than trying to cover everything in a standalone lesson, introduce one scientist per topic, briefly, consistently, across the year. Over time, pupils build a much more varied mental image of who does science.

When pupils research a scientist, a simple graphic organiser works well to keep the focus on the most useful information: what they’re famous for, key life events, where they studied or worked, and a fun fact or two. This avoids the “copy and paste from Wikipedia” trap and encourages genuine engagement with the person behind the work.

None of this needs to be complicated. Small, consistent steps across a year group and a key stage add up. Over time, we can help pupils see that science belongs to all of us.

Want to know more?

This video forms part of a larger online Udemy course on Teaching Primary School Science. You can access the full course here.

Access the graphic organiser here

Scientists in the curriculum mapping can be found here.

The post Scientists Don’t Look Like That | Destroying Classroom Stereotypes appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

If that sounds familiar, this post is for you. It covers the core responsibilities of the role, what good practice looks like in each area, and how to approach the first term without feeling overwhelmed. I’ll also point you to a useful download, specifically for subject leaders.

What does a primary science subject leader actually do?

At its most basic, the role has four main areas of responsibility: curriculum, staff, evidence, and accountability.

Curriculum means ensuring that what is taught across the school is coherent, well-sequenced, and covers the national curriculum programmes of study from EYFS to Year 6. It includes making sure that working scientifically is genuinely embedded, not just listed on a planning document, and that pupils build on prior knowledge rather than repeating topics without clear progression.

Staff responsibility means understanding the confidence levels of your colleagues and putting appropriate support in place. Most primary teachers are not science specialists. Subject knowledge gaps, uncertainty about planning practical work, and limited experience of different types of scientific enquiry are all common. Identifying these and responding to them, through CPD, paired planning, or subject leader modelling, is a central part of the role.

Evidence means monitoring what is actually happening in classrooms and gathering the information you need to make good decisions. Book scrutiny, lesson observation, planning reviews, and pupil voice all contribute. The goal is not to catch anyone out but to build an honest picture of where science is strong and where it needs attention.

Accountability means communicating that picture to senior leadership and governors, making the case for the resources and time science needs, and demonstrating that you are leading the subject with purpose.

Where to start in your first term

The temptation when starting any new role is to try to tackle everything at once. With science subject leadership, that tends to lead to a lot of half-finished work and not much impact.

A more useful approach is to begin with an honest audit. Before you can plan anything, you need to know where you are starting from. What is the curriculum coverage like? Where are the gaps? How confident are staff? What resources do you have and what condition are they in? What has previous monitoring shown?

A structured self-evaluation, working through each area of the role systematically, takes time but gives you something concrete to work from. It also generates the evidence base for your first governor report, which tends to arrive sooner than you expect.

From the audit, you can identify two or three genuine priorities rather than a long list of everything that could be better. Those priorities drive your action plan, your CPD decisions, and your conversations with senior leadership about support and resources.

What good science subject leadership looks like in practice

Ofsted and the wider school improvement literature are reasonably consistent about what effective subject leadership involves. Inspectors want to see a subject leader who knows their subject well, understands what is happening in classrooms, can articulate the intent behind the curriculum and how it is implemented, and can demonstrate impact on pupils’ knowledge and understanding.

In practice, this means having documentation that reflects genuine thinking rather than a compliance exercise, monitoring activity that happens regularly and leads to action, CPD that addresses real needs rather than ticking a box, and governor reports that give a clear and honest account of the current position.

It also means being connected to the wider primary science community. Organisations such as STEM Learning, the Primary Science Teaching Trust, the Ogden Trust, and the ASE all offer resources, networks, and professional development that most subject leaders find genuinely useful. PSQM, the Primary Science Quality Mark, provides a structured framework for developing science across the school and is worth looking into if you want external recognition for the work you are doing.

The tools that make the role manageable

One of the most consistent things I hear from science subject leaders is that the hardest part of the role is not knowing what to do: it is having the time and the right tools to do it properly.

That is exactly why I put together the Primary Science Subject Leader Toolkit: eight fully formatted documents covering every significant aspect of the role. The set includes a self-evaluation audit tool, an action planning template, a governor report template, a pupil voice prompt sheet, a staff CPD planning guide, a curriculum mapping document, a resource audit checklist, and a curated directory of the most useful links and organisations for primary science.

Each document is designed to be used directly, adapted to your school’s context, and updated year on year. They work as a connected set, so the evidence you gather in one place feeds into the next.

The toolkit is available as a starter pack (three documents focused on audit, planning, and governor reporting) or as a complete set. You can find both on the shop page here on sciencefix.co.uk and on TES Resources.

If you are at the start of the role and wondering where to begin, the audit tool is the right place. Everything else follows from there.

The post How to Get Started as a Primary Science Subject Leader appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

The responses, which came mainly from trainee teachers alongside classroom teachers, science subject leads and a small number of senior leaders, offer a snapshot of where things currently stand. What they describe is a profession that is finding AI genuinely useful, but that is largely making it up as it goes along, without much institutional support to fall back on.

What teachers are actually doing

ChatGPT is by some distance the most widely used tool, cited by 39 of the 45 respondents. Microsoft Copilot came second at 23, followed by Google Gemini and TeachMate AI both on 13. Very few respondents had used tools such as Perplexity, Claude or MagicSchool, suggesting that the typical teacher’s AI experience is fairly narrow.

That is not necessarily a problem. Teachers are busy, and reaching for a familiar tool is entirely reasonable. But it is worth noting that general-purpose AI models were not built with primary science in mind. They do not know your scheme of work, your year group’s prior knowledge, or the specific vocabulary you want pupils to be using. Subject-specific prompting can compensate for this to a degree, but that skill takes time to develop.

In terms of frequency, most respondents are using AI occasionally rather than as a daily habit. Fifteen said they use it one to three times a month, ten said one to three times a week, and just four said daily or almost daily. Nine said they never use it for science teaching at all. This mirrors broader patterns. Research from the Tony Blair Institute found that only around one in four UK teachers are using AI daily, with use largely limited to a narrow set of tasks, most commonly generating lesson materials and supporting curriculum planning (Crowley-Carbery and Johnson, 2025).

Within science specifically, the most common uses reported in this survey were planning lessons or sequences (16 respondents), creating quiz or retrieval practice questions (14), differentiating resources (12), designing or adapting practical investigations (11), and creating worksheets (11). Fourteen respondents said they had not used AI for science tasks at all, which is a useful reminder that adoption is still far from universal, even among those who responded to a survey on the topic.

One figure that stands out is that ten respondents had used AI to check or extend their own science subject knowledge. This is a practical use case that rarely features in discussions about AI in education, which tend to focus either on lesson planning or on pupil-facing applications. For a generalist primary teacher who may not feel especially confident with forces, sound or electricity, being able to ask a quick question and get a clear explanation is genuinely useful. It is not a substitute for sustained subject knowledge development, but as a low-stakes starting point, it has real value. This does of course run the risk of the AI hallucinating information. It would be better to check more authoritative sources of information.

What Trainee Teachers are doing with AI

The trainee teacher data deserves particular attention from ITE providers. Of the 26 trainee respondents, 73% said they had used AI to summarise course reading. That is a significant figure, and it raises a reasonable question about depth of engagement: a summary generated by an AI model is shaped by what the model prioritises, which may not align with what a tutor intended the trainee to take from a text, or with the nuance that comes from reading primary sources directly. Similarly, 42% reported using AI for writing reflections. It is not clear from the survey whether this means generating a reflection wholesale or using AI to structure and develop an outline, and that distinction matters considerably. Reflective writing in ITE is not simply a task to complete; it is a professional learning process, and if AI is doing the cognitive work rather than supporting it, something important is being short-circuited. The 20% using AI to write their assignments should also raise some concerns. None of these findings is a reason to prohibit AI use in initial teacher training, but they do suggest that providers need to be explicit about where and how AI is appropriate within their programmes, rather than leaving trainees to work that out for themselves.

The workload question

Thirty-seven of the 40 respondents who use AI said it has either slightly or significantly reduced their workload. That is consistent with what larger surveys have found. The DfE’s own guidance on generative AI acknowledges that AI has demonstrated it can help the education workforce by reducing some of the administrative burdens that hard-working teachers face in their day-to-day roles (DFE 2025). The honest caveat is that time savings at the generation stage can be offset by time spent checking, editing and adapting output. Several respondents in this survey flagged that as a consideration, and it is borne out by how people are actually behaving.

Accuracy: a real concern, not just a theoretical one

Thirty-three of the 45 respondents said they always check or edit AI-generated content before using it with pupils. That is encouraging. Six said they often do so, and four said sometimes. The concern is not that teachers are being careless; it is that not everyone knows what they are looking for when they check.

Six respondents had already identified scientific inaccuracies or misconceptions in AI-generated content. A further 17 said they were not sure whether they had encountered any. That second group is worth pausing on. If a teacher does not spot an error, they will not count it as an error, but the misconception may still reach pupils. Inaccurate or misleading science content was the single most widely cited concern in the survey, selected by 29 respondents. Over-reliance on AI came second, followed closely by worries about age-appropriateness for primary pupils. An AI-generated story for a lesson hook is relatively low risk. An AI-generated explanation of what happens to particles when a substance changes state is another matter entirely and deserves closer scrutiny. Knowing which parts of the output need the most careful checking is a skill that develops with experience, but it can also be taught explicitly.

The policy gap

One of the clearest findings from this survey is how patchy the institutional picture is. Only nine respondents said their school has a clear, well-communicated policy on staff use of generative AI. Sixteen said there was no policy yet, ten said any policy that existed was not very clear, and a further ten were not sure whether a policy existed at all. This is not unique to the schools in this sample. A 2025 study by Doss et al. found that across their schools, professional development for teachers, training for students on how to use AI, and school and district policies all lag behind the rapid increase in actual use. In the UK context, as of late 2025, many educators reported that their institutions had minimal oversight of how staff were using generative AI, with teachers left to experiment independently (DFE 2025). The DfE’s guidance exists, but it is deliberately non-prescriptive, which means that schools are largely left to work out the details themselves. For individual teachers, working without a clear policy creates uncertainty about what is and is not appropriate. It can also mean that good practice is not shared, and that teachers who are more cautious or less confident are left without the reassurance they need.

Training: most have had little or none

The training picture is stark. Almost half of respondents (19) had received no training or guidance on using generative AI in education at all. Fifteen had received only a brief overview, and six had received in-depth training. Five had pursued self-directed learning only.

Pearson’s School Report 2025, which gathered views from more than 14,000 people across the UK education sector, found that almost a quarter of teachers said they were not confident using AI, and only 9% felt confident teaching it. In response, 42% said AI should be included in teacher training. A separate report for the National Literacy Trust found that three in four teachers said they needed more training, support and resources to use generative AI tools effectively (Picton and Clark, 2024).

What teachers in this survey said they actually want is fairly specific. Practical examples of effective use in primary science came top, selected by 28 respondents. Subject-specific prompts and templates for science topics came second at 24. Training on checking the accuracy and bias of AI outputs was chosen by 20 respondents, followed by time to experiment and collaborate with colleagues (17), clear school or MAT policies (15), and guidance on safeguarding and data protection (15).

What schools could do

The requests teachers are making are not especially difficult to act on, and they do not require a school to have resolved every policy question before starting.

The most practical starting point is sharing examples of good practice. A science subject lead who has used AI to generate quiz questions for a particular topic, or to produce differentiated versions of a resource, could share those examples with colleagues alongside a brief note about what they changed or removed. That kind of peer-led approach is less intimidating than formal training, and it builds a shared understanding of both the possibilities and the pitfalls.

Prompt templates are similarly accessible. A short bank of tested prompts, designed specifically for primary science tasks, saves time and helps staff get more consistent results. They can be built collaboratively, updated as people find what works, and shared across a staff team or a MAT without significant cost. See this post for examples of prompts you can use.

A simple fix – spend five minutes in every staff meeting sharing useful ways you have used AI this week. Also share the ways it went wrong – as examples to avoid!

Training on the use of AI is arguably the most important gap to address. The Frontiers in Education review of generative AI in K-12 settings found that nearly 90% of reviewed papers emphasise the need for teachers’ professional development for AI-integrated classrooms, specifically highlighting the importance of developing subject-specific AI literacy through authentic learning tasks (Alfarwan, 2025). For science, that means helping teachers understand where AI tends to get things wrong: oversimplified models, conflated concepts, imprecise language, or outdated information. These are not random errors; they have patterns, and knowing the patterns makes checking faster and more reliable. ScienceFix can help with this – contact us for our AI training options.

Finally, a clear AI policy, even a brief one, removes a lot of low-level uncertainty. It does not need to cover every conceivable scenario. It just needs to say what is permitted, what is not, who to ask, and what to do if AI-generated content turns out to be inaccurate. The DfE’s own guidance is clear that any content produced by AI requires critical judgement to check for appropriateness and accuracy, and that the final responsibility rests with the teacher and their school. (DFE 2025). A school policy that reflects that principle in plain language gives teachers something to work from. For guidance on how to write an AI policy, see this post on the Whiteboard Blog.

A practical tool, not an automatic one

The teachers in this survey are, on the whole, approaching AI with reasonable caution. Most are checking what they use. Most find it useful. Most want more support to use it well, not less. What they are describing is a tool that works best when the person using it knows their subject, knows their pupils, and knows what questions to ask of the output.

For primary science, that last point matters more than it might in some other contexts. Science is cumulative, and misconceptions formed in Key Stage 1 or 2 can be surprisingly persistent. An AI model that confidently explains something incorrectly, or uses language that is technically imprecise, is not a helpful starting point for teaching. Used well, with appropriate checking and a clear sense of where the tool is likely to fall short, generative AI can save time and open up new possibilities. Getting there requires support that, for most teachers in this survey, has not yet arrived.

Note on the survey: this survey was carried out in early 2026 and received 45 responses from primary educators in England, with a significant proportion of trainee teachers among the respondents. It should be read as indicative rather than representative.

Alfarwan, A. (2025) ‘Generative AI use in K-12 education: a systematic review’, Frontiers in Education, 10, article 1647573. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1647573 (Accessed: 31 March 2026).

Crowley-Carbery, K. and Johnson, R. (2025) Generation ready: building the foundations for AI-proficient education in England’s schools. London: Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Published 1 September 2025. Available at: https://institute.global/insights/public-services/generation-ready-building-the-foundations-for-ai-proficient-education-in-englands-schools (Accessed: 31 March 2026).

Department for Education (2025) Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education. Policy paper. London: DfE. First published 29 March 2023, last updated 12 August 2025. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/generative-artificial-intelligence-in-education (Accessed: 31 March 2026).

Doss, C.J., Bozick, R., Schwartz, H.L., Chu, L., Rainey, L.R., Woo, A., Reich, J. and Dukes, J. (2025) AI use in schools is quickly increasing but guidance lags behind: findings from the RAND survey panels. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Available at: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4180-1.html (Accessed: 31 March 2026).

Pearson School Report (2025) Learning for Life Available at: https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/schools/insights-and-events/topics/school-and-college-report/2025.html  (Accessed 31 March 2026)

Picton, I. and Clark, C. (2024) Children, young people and teachers’ use of generative AI to support literacy in 2024. London: National Literacy Trust. Available at: https://literacytrust.org.uk/research-services/research-reports/children-young-people-and-teachers-use-of-generative-ai-to-support-literacy-in-2024/ (Accessed: 31 March 2026).

The post How Primary Science Teachers Are Using Generative AI: Findings appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

Most primary teachers ask a lot of questions. Research suggests it can be close to 400 a day. But quantity and quality are different things, and in science lessons particularly, the type of question you ask has a direct effect on how deeply children think, how much they stay engaged, and how well you understand what they actually know.

This post pulls together some practical ideas on questioning in primary science: the different types of questions, how to structure them through a lesson, and some simple techniques that make questioning more inclusive and more informative.

This video forms part of a longer Primary Science course on Udemy. Access the full course here.

Closed Questions and Open Questions

It helps to start with the basics. Closed questions require a short, specific answer: yes or no, a single word, a simple fact. They are pitched at the recall end of thinking. Examples might include: which parachute fell slowest? Did all your cress seeds germinate? Is wood a conductor or an insulator?

These questions are not without value. They are useful at the start of a lesson, for checking vocabulary, or for getting the class settled into a topic. The issue is that if closed questions dominate your teaching, you are mostly checking whether children can remember things, rather than whether they can use what they know.

Open questions are the ones that create space for thinking. They begin with words like what, why, how, describe, predict. They invite children to explain their reasoning, connect ideas, or consider what might happen. How did the size of the parachute affect how fast it fell? What conditions does a plant need to grow well? These questions do not have a single correct answer and that is precisely the point. They require children to think rather than just retrieve.

In primary science, a useful distinction comes from Paul Black and Christine Harrison’s work in Science Inside the Black Box, where they describe questions as either “skinny” or “rich.” Skinny questions check facts and vocabulary. Rich questions ask children to link ideas, apply their understanding, or give reasons for what they have observed. A healthy science lesson needs both, but most lessons could benefit from more of the rich variety.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Plan Your Questions

Bloom’s Taxonomy gives teachers a framework for thinking about the range of questions used in a lesson. At the lower levels, you have recall and comprehension: what is it, when did it happen, can they explain it back to you? Moving up, you get into application and analysis: how would you test this, why did this happen, what would change if we altered one of the variables? At the higher levels, you are asking children to create or evaluate: could you design a fair test for this, is this a good way of finding out the answer?

The important thing here is not that every lesson needs to reach the highest levels of Bloom’s, but that you are consciously building through a sequence. Start with lower-order questions to establish shared knowledge and vocabulary, then move towards questions that push children to think more critically as the lesson develops. Planning a rough question sequence before you teach a topic takes time but makes a real difference to the quality of the discussion you get.

Questioning Techniques Worth Using

Asking a question and taking the first hand that goes up gives you one child’s answer and very little information about everyone else. A few simple techniques change that.

Think-Pair-Share gives every child time to think, then discuss with a partner, before anything is shared with the class. This is particularly useful with complex questions where children benefit from rehearsing their thinking before committing to an answer.

Cold calling means the teacher selects who answers rather than waiting for volunteers. The important detail here is to ask the question first, then name the child. If you name the child first, everyone else switches off. Ask the question, give a moment for thinking, then choose. Done consistently and with a supportive tone, this keeps all children on task.

Mini whiteboards are one of the most practical tools for whole-class questioning. Every child writes their answer and holds it up on a signal, so you get an instant read of the whole room rather than one response. They work well for quick vocabulary checks, labelling diagrams, making predictions, or recording variables. The practical detail matters: establish a clear routine for distributing and collecting them, and use a “3, 2, 1, show me” signal so boards go up at the same moment and children are not looking at each other’s answers first.

Bounce it is a useful variation for children who are unsure. A child who cannot answer can choose to “bounce” the question to a classmate, who explains their thinking; the original child then has to relay that explanation back. It reduces the pressure of not knowing while keeping everyone accountable.

Hinge Questions: Knowing When to Move On

A hinge question is a short, specific check that sits at a key point in the lesson, typically after you have introduced a new concept and before you move on to something that depends on it. The question is designed to tell you, quickly and clearly, whether the class has understood what you just taught.

Hinge questions work best when they are closed or multiple choice, so there is a clear correct answer and a clear set of misconceptions to look out for. Paired with mini whiteboards, they let you scan the whole class in a few seconds.

Before moving from how sunlight helps plants grow to how roots absorb water, for example, you might ask: what do plants use sunlight for? If most children can tell you that plants use light to make energy for growth, you are ready to move on. If a significant number of them are unsure, it is worth a brief re-explanation before progressing rather than building the next concept on shaky foundations.

The key habits around hinge questions are: plan them in advance as part of your lesson design rather than improvising them; keep the language simple and avoid jargon; and anticipate the wrong answers, because the misconceptions tell you as much as the correct responses.

Encouraging Children to Ask Their Own Questions

It is worth noting that as children move through school, they tend to ask fewer questions, not more. Research by Susan Engel found that preschool children ask roughly one question every two minutes; by Year 5, that can drop to as few as one question in two hours. Some of that is developmental, but some of it is the classroom environment.

Simple things help. A wonder wall, where children write their questions on sticky notes and add them to a display, gives children a low-stakes way to record what they are curious about without interrupting the lesson. A question journal in the back of their science book serves a similar purpose. KWL grids (what do I know, what do I want to know, what have I learned) prompt children to articulate their questions before a topic begins.

The Great Science Share website has some good resources for this, including question frames and prompt cards that help children generate their own investigable questions. Worth bookmarking.

Classroom Application: Three Things to Try

1. Record yourself or ask a colleague to observe one science lesson. Tally how many questions you ask and sort them roughly into skinny/rich or closed/open. Most teachers find the balance is more skewed than they expected. The data gives you something concrete to work with.

2. Plan a question sequence for your next science topic. Before you teach, write down five or six questions you will use at different points in the lesson, ranging from recall at the start to more open reasoning questions as the lesson develops. It does not need to be exhaustive; even a rough plan changes the quality of what you ask.

3. Introduce mini whiteboards as a routine part of one lesson per week. Set up a consistent system for distributing and collecting them, practise the “3, 2, 1, show me” signal, and use them for at least two or three check-in moments per lesson. Within a few weeks, it becomes automatic.

In Summary

Questioning is one of the most powerful tools a teacher has, and in science it is particularly important because it directly shapes how children learn to think about evidence, prediction, and explanation. Small adjustments to the types of questions you ask, when you ask them, and how you gather responses from the whole class can make a significant difference to the quality of learning in your lessons. None of this requires extra resources or preparation time once the habits are established.

This video forms part of a longer Primary Science course on Udemy. Access the full course here.

The post Ask Better Questions in Science: A Guide for Primary Teachers appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

This is not an argument against using AI for planning. Used well, these tools can save time on the structural and administrative side of lesson preparation. But in science, where a misconception embedded in a lesson can take months to undo, there are specific things worth checking before any AI-generated content goes near a class.

1. Is the science actually correct?

This is the most important check, and the one most likely to be skipped when time is short.

AI language models are trained to produce text that reads well and sounds authoritative. They are not trained to be factually accurate, and they have no awareness of when they are wrong. In primary science, this produces a specific kind of error: confident, well-presented content that contains a scientific inaccuracy the teacher may not catch, and that pupils certainly will not.

Common problem areas include:

• Explanations of forces, energy, and electricity, where everyday language and scientific language diverge significantly
• Life cycles and classification, where AI tends to oversimplify in ways that create misconceptions
• Explanations of physical processes such as evaporation, condensation, and dissolving, where the correct scientific explanation is counterintuitive

If your own subject knowledge in the relevant area is secure, checking an AI-generated explanation takes two minutes. If it is not, check against a reliable source before using the content: a good primary science scheme, the ASE’s resources, or a subject-specific reference you trust. Check the lesson against PLAN assessment’s knowledge matrices.

2. Will the activity actually work in a primary classroom?

AI tools do not know your classroom. They do not know what equipment you have, how your class responds to group work, how much time you actually have in a given lesson, or whether the practical activity they have suggested requires resources that do not exist in most primary schools.

Read any suggested practical activity as a practitioner, not just as a subject check. Ask:

• Do we actually have this equipment, in sufficient quantities?
• Is the level of independence this assumes realistic for my class?
• Will this work in the time available, including setup and clearing away?
• Are there any safety considerations the AI has not flagged?

AI-generated activities tend to assume ideal conditions. Classrooms rarely provide them. A quick read-through from a practical standpoint will usually surface any issues.

3. Does it actually cover the right National Curriculum content?

AI tools can drift. Ask for a lesson on sound for Year 4 and you may get something that covers the topic broadly but misses the specific aspects required by the National Curriculum programme of study: that sounds are made by vibrations, that vibrations travel through a medium, that pitch and volume can be changed. The lesson looks like a sound lesson. It may not be teaching the right things.

This matters more in science than in some other subjects, because the NC programme of study for science is quite specific about what should be taught in each year group. A lesson that addresses the general topic without covering the required content will leave gaps that are difficult to spot and harder to fill later.

Keep the relevant section of the NC open alongside any AI-generated plan and check that what the lesson actually teaches matches what the curriculum requires. This takes less time than it sounds.

Checklist

A quick checklist: before using an AI-generated science lesson,

• check the science is factually accurate;
• check the practical activity is workable in your classroom;
• check the content matches the National Curriculum programme of study for the relevant year group.
• also – always remember to do a risk assessment, and even better if you can check any activities against CLEAPSS guidance for safety.

If all these pass, the lesson is probably worth using as a starting point.

The bigger picture

None of this means AI planning tools are not useful. For generating a lesson structure, producing differentiated questions, or drafting a sequence of activities as a starting point, they can genuinely save time. The problem is not the tool; it’s using it without the professional judgement that turns a generated draft into a lesson that actually works.

In primary science in particular, that judgement matters. The subject is one where teacher confidence has a direct effect on how much gets taught and how well. Using AI to bypass subject knowledge rather than support it is likely to make that problem worse, not better.

Further reading

For more on AI in primary science, check out this article.

If you’re finding the lessons you get are not very good, then you might want to make your prompt better. This guide explains more.

For more AI guides, check out my YouTube channel

The post AI-generated science lessons: 3 things to check appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

That does not have to happen. But avoiding it takes some deliberate action now, not a scramble in June when the damage is already done.

Why It Keeps Happening

The reasons are fairly predictable. In Year 6, SATs preparation dominates from January onwards, and science time is often the first casualty. Across the rest of the school, summer term fills up quickly: sports days, transition days, themed weeks, class assemblies, and the general low-level disruption that comes with warmer weather and a restless cohort. English and maths have a protected status in most schools. Science does not. So when something has to give, science gives.

None of this is anyone’s fault in particular. It is a structural problem, and it is worth naming it as such, because that also means it can be addressed structurally.

Three Things Worth Doing in April

1. Put science in the timetable explicitly, now

Not “we’ll fit it in when we can” but an actual named slot, on paper, agreed with your year groups or SLT. A protected slot that already exists is much easier to defend than one you are trying to create in Week 8 when something else has appeared in its place.

This does not need to be complicated. A single science lesson per week, consistently timetabled, is enough to make meaningful progress through your programme of study. The point is to make it visible and deliberate before the pressure builds.

2. Run a quick coverage audit

Before you can protect time, it helps to know what you are protecting it for. Take thirty minutes to look at what has actually been taught in each year group against the National Curriculum programme of study. Where are the gaps? Which of those gaps matter most, given where each cohort sits in the school?

A Year 4 class that has not covered states of matter yet has time to address it. A Year 6 class with gaps in evolution and inheritance needs a different kind of response. The audit does not need to be exhaustive; it just needs to tell you where to focus.

If you want something to structure this process, this coverage checklist is designed to support exactly this step.

3. Have the conversation now, not later

Ten minutes in a staff meeting is enough to surface whether colleagues have coverage concerns while there is still time to do something about them. A quick check-in with year group leads can tell you where science is at risk before the end-of-year rush makes everything harder.

As a science subject lead, this is one of the most useful things you can do in April. It is not bureaucratic; it is practical. Problems that are visible in April are solvable. The same problems in June often are not.

A Note on End-of-Year Realism

There is still time to finish the year well. But the window is shorter than it looks from here. Schools that come out of summer with strong science coverage across year groups are usually the ones that had these conversations early and made deliberate choices about the timetable, rather than hoping things would work out.

It is not a big lift. But it does need to happen now.

Next Steps

Use the coverage checklist to run your audit and identify gaps by year group. If you would like support with science subject leadership or staff CPD, you can find out more about what is available through ScienceFix.

The post Science in Summer Term: How to Protect Curriculum Time Before It Disappears appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

Cognitive load theory is one of the most well-evidenced areas of educational research, and it has very practical implications for how we plan and deliver primary science lessons. Here is a straightforward guide to what it is and how to put it to work.

How Memory Works: The Basic Model

Memory is generally understood to work in three stages, drawing on a model first proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968 and refined by researchers since. The three components are:

• Sensory memory: constantly filtering the world around us, only passing on what seems important.
• Working memory: where active thinking happens, but with a very limited capacity of roughly five to nine items at a time.
• Long-term memory: where knowledge is stored in organised structures called schemas.

Schemas are essentially mental filing systems. When you know how to ride a bike, you do not consciously think through every movement. The schema for cycling is so well-practised that it runs almost automatically. This matters for teaching, because the more established a child’s prior knowledge, the more space they have in working memory for new learning.

What Is Cognitive Load Theory?

Cognitive load theory, developed by John Sweller and published in 1988, is built on one central idea: working memory has a limited capacity, and if we exceed it, learning breaks down.

In the classroom, this means that every decision we make about how to present information has a cost. Ask children to do too many things at once, present information in a cluttered or confusing way, or introduce too many new concepts in a single session, and you risk filling up that limited working memory before any learning has had a chance to move into long-term storage.

A simple example: a diagram with labels on the lines is easier to process than one where you have to cross-reference letters against a key at the side. The second version requires the brain to hold more information in working memory simultaneously, which uses up capacity that could be spent on understanding.

Two Ways to Extend Working Memory

Cognitive load theory also gives us two useful insights into how we can effectively increase what pupils can hold in working memory at any given moment.

1. Visual and auditory channels work independently

The brain processes what we see and what we hear through separate channels. This means that a spoken explanation alongside a diagram places less demand on working memory than written text alongside a diagram, because the two visual elements compete with one another. This is known as the modality effect.

In practice: narrate your diagrams rather than adding dense text to them. Talk through what pupils can see rather than making them read and look at the same time.

2. Prior knowledge expands effective working memory

A well-practised schema is treated as a single item in working memory, regardless of how much knowledge it contains. This is why pre-teaching key vocabulary before a complex lesson helps, and why activating prior knowledge at the start of a session is so valuable. It gives children something to attach new learning to, and frees up space in working memory for the new content.

Practical Strategies Rooted in Cognitive Science

Several classroom approaches are directly supported by this research. Here is a brief overview:

Chunking

Breaking content into smaller steps and allowing pupils to practise each step before moving on. This prevents working memory from being overwhelmed before understanding has formed. When teaching the digestive system, for example, you would introduce and check understanding of each organ in turn rather than presenting the whole process at once.

Retrieval Practice

Low-stakes activities that ask pupils to recall information from memory. Short quizzes, labelling tasks, or asking children to tell a partner three things they remember from last week’s lesson all count. The act of retrieving information strengthens it in long-term memory and, crucially, makes it more available to working memory the next time it is needed.

Spaced Practice

Distributing learning over time rather than covering everything in one block. Returning to a topic several weeks after it was first taught, even briefly, significantly improves retention. In science, this might mean revisiting forces vocabulary during a later electricity unit, or reviewing fair testing skills periodically across the year.

Dual Coding

Using words and pictures together in a way that complements rather than duplicates. This does not mean putting an image on every slide. The image needs to add meaning. Annotated diagrams, labelled sequences, and demonstrations with narration are all examples of effective dual coding. A dense block of text on a slide, on the other hand, creates unnecessary load.

Concrete Examples and Elaboration

Abstract concepts become more manageable when they are anchored to something familiar. Cutting a piece of string to represent food being broken down into smaller molecules, or using a sieve with marbles and flour to model the small intestine, are the kinds of analogies that help pupils build schema more efficiently. Asking children to explain connections, how is this similar to that? or how could you use this idea in a different situation?, deepens their understanding further.

Interleaving

Rather than covering one topic exhaustively before moving to the next, interleaving mixes different topics or skills within a sequence of lessons. This can feel counterintuitive, as it creates more difficulty, but that difficulty is productive: pupils have to work harder to retrieve and distinguish between different ideas, which strengthens long-term retention.

A Note on Common Misconceptions

It is worth being clear about a few ideas that sometimes get muddled up with cognitive science:

• Learning styles (VAK) are not supported by cognitive science. The fact that visual and auditory channels work separately does not mean that any child is exclusively a visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic learner. We all use a mix. Designing separate resources for supposed learning styles is not something the research backs up.
• We do not use only 10% of our brain. This is a persistent myth with no basis in evidence.
• Children are not left-brained or right-brained. This is another oversimplification that does not reflect how the brain actually works.
• Cognitive development is not tied to fixed age-related stages in the way that older models suggested. Children vary considerably, and their ability to perform cognitive tasks is much more continuous than any stage model implies.

In Summary

Cognitive science is not a new set of things to add to an already full to-do list. It is more of a lens through which to look at what you are already doing. Most experienced primary teachers already use many of these strategies. Understanding the reasoning behind them can help you use them more consistently, adapt them to different topics, and explain them to others.

The main takeaway is straightforward: working memory is limited, learning requires information to reach long-term memory, and the way we structure and sequence our teaching has a significant effect on whether that happens. Small, deliberate choices, such as chunking a complex topic, narrating a diagram, or building in regular retrieval practice, are more than just good habits. They are well-evidenced strategies that help children actually hold on to what we teach them.

Which of these strategies do you already use regularly in your science lessons? And are there any you would like to try? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

Want to know more?

This content is a part of a longer course on teaching primary school science, offering valuable teaching tips for teachers on improving their science teaching. You can access the Teaching Primary Science course on Udemy here.

You can also buy my Science Fix book from all online bookstores.

The post Cognitive Load Theory Explained for Primary Science Teachers appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

At the time of writing this post, four astronauts are travelling towards the Moon. NASA’s Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on 1 April 2026, and over ten days the crew will loop around the Moon before returning to Earth. It is the first time humans have travelled this far from our planet since Apollo 17 in December 1972.

That is a genuinely wonderful hook for the primary classroom, particularly for KS2 teachers covering Earth and Space, but it has links with other science topics too.

What is the mission?

Artemis II is not a Moon landing — the crew will not set foot on the surface. Instead, it is a test flight: NASA needs to check that the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation and communications all work as they should with a real crew on board, before committing to a landing mission.

The four crew members are Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. The mission carries several notable firsts: Glover is the first person of colour, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American citizen to travel beyond low Earth orbit.

That last detail is worth mentioning to children. Space exploration is not solely an American or Russian endeavour — it involves teams and agencies from across the world. In the UK we can celebrate our own astronauts Helen Sharman (first Brit in space) and Tim Peake.

Classroom ideas

Here are a few activities that connect directly to the mission, most of which need little or no preparation.

How the Earth and Moon move relative to each other

This papercraft Sun, Earth and Moon model gives children something to make and hold, and it journey into focus in a way that a diagram on a whiteboard rarely does. It is a good starting point for a conversation about why the journey takes ten days even in a spacecraft travelling at thousands of miles per hour. Have students use the model to explain why Artemis 2 won’t be in a straight line, but rather a “figure eight” trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth.

You could even act this out on a playground – with children playing the role of Earth, Sun and Moon.

Moon Craters

The Activity: Fill a tray with flour (the moon’s surface) and sprinkle a thin layer of cocoa powder or cinnamon on top (the lunar regolith). Drop marbles or balls of different sizes from various heights.

The Learning: Students can see how the white “sub-surface” is ejected outward, creating “rays.” Explore how changing the height, or the size of the ball, changes the size of the crater that’s formed.

Rocket Science: SLS Straw Rockets

The Space Launch System (SLS) is the most powerful rocket ever built. Students can mimic the “launch” with simple materials.

The Activity: Give students a straw and a slightly wider paper tube (sealed at one end) that fits over the straw. When they blow into the straw, the “rocket” launches.

The Challenge: Can they design “fins” from scrap paper to make the rocket fly straighter? This introduces basic aerodynamics and the concept of thrust.

How fast? How far?

The round trip covers roughly 700,000 miles. The mission lasts ten days. That is a straightforward calculation for upper KS2, and it leads naturally into comparisons children can make sense of — the distance from London to New York is around 3,500 miles, for instance.

As a class, make a model of the Earth and the moon to scale. In diagrams we always put the moon close to the Earth, but in reality they’re are quite a way apart. Ask the class to guess where the moon would be if the Earth was the size of a basketball. In actual fact the moon would be a tennis ball about 7 meters away (about 30 Earth diameters away). Measure this out!

Phases of the Moon

If you start a Moon observation diary with your class this week, you can track the phases throughout the mission and beyond. This fits directly into the KS2 programme of study, and the timing gives it a bit of added relevance. Use this model to explain how we see the moon phases. Explore it with a torch and a football.

Who goes to space?

A short research task on the Artemis II crew works well as a writing or discussion activity. What training do astronauts do? What skills and qualities does NASA look for? Why does the crew include people from different countries? This can cross over into PSHE without straying too far from the science.

The Activity: Create “Astronaut Fact Files.” Assign small groups to research Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen.

The Discussion: Focus on their backgrounds. Christina Koch was an electrical engineer; Victor Glover was a test pilot. This shows students that there are many paths to NASA or the ESA.

Why not just land?

This is a good discussion question for older primary pupils. Artemis II is explicitly a test flight — so what are they testing, and why does it matter? Children often assume the difficult part is getting to the Moon at all, but keeping people alive and in communication over a ten-day deep space mission is where much of the complexity lies.

Where to follow the mission

NASA is streaming coverage on its YouTube channel and via NASA+ throughout the mission. There is also a daily mission blog on the NASA website if you want to follow specific milestones — the translunar injection burn, the lunar flyby and the return to Earth are the main events.

The mission is due to return to Earth around 11 April. That gives you a week or so to run activities that connect to something happening in real time. This is in the school holidays in the UK, so you could schedule something for the first week back when Artemis has returned to Earth.

The post Artemis II – Primary Science Classroom Ideas appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

These five activities work just as well at a kitchen table as they do in a classroom. If you are a teacher looking for something to share with families to do at home, or a parent who wants to keep things interesting without a trip to the shops, this list is worth bookmarking.

Everything here uses things you are likely to already have at home. None of it requires specialist equipment, and all of it has genuine science behind it.

1. The Naked Egg

What you need: A raw egg, a jar, white vinegar.

What to do: Place a raw egg in a jar and cover it completely with white vinegar. Leave it for 48 hours. When you come back, the shell will have dissolved, leaving a rubbery, semi-translucent egg that you can hold in your hand.

The science: Eggshells are made of calcium carbonate. Vinegar is a mild acid (acetic acid). When the two meet, a chemical reaction takes place — the calcium carbonate breaks down, releasing carbon dioxide (you will see the bubbles forming on the shell almost immediately) and leaving behind a soft, flexible membrane.

This is a good entry point into chemical change: something irreversible has happened. You cannot get the shell back. It is also worth asking children what they notice about the egg after 48 hours — it is larger than it was, because water from the vinegar passes through the membrane by osmosis.

2. How Strong Is an Egg?

What you need: Raw eggs (in their shells), a flat board or heavy book, more books or weights.

What to do: Place an egg on a flat surface and balance a board on top of it. Then carefully add books or weights one at a time. Children will predict it will crack almost immediately. It will not.

The science: The dome and arch shape of an egg distributes force evenly across its surface rather than concentrating it at a single point. This is the same principle used in Roman arches, brick bridges, and modern stadium roofs. An intact egg can support a surprising amount of weight before it fails — and when it does fail, it tends to crack suddenly rather than gradually.

Worth pairing with a discussion of natural structures and human engineering. Why do we build domed roofs? Why are tunnels curved rather than square?

3. The Chocolate Melt Race

What you need: Squares of the same chocolate bar, a timer, different locations.

What to do: Give children equal-sized squares of chocolate and ask them to test which conditions melt it fastest: holding it in a warm hand, placing it near a radiator, leaving it on a sunny windowsill, putting it in a pocket. Keep one square as a control in a cool, still location. Time how long each takes to melt noticeably.

The science: Chocolate melts at a relatively low temperature — around 34°C — which is just below body temperature. This makes it unusually good for investigating heat transfer in a classroom setting: the melting point is reachable with everyday heat sources, and children can observe the state change directly.

This activity works well as a fair testing exercise. Variables to control: same size pieces, same starting temperature, same type of chocolate. Variable to change: location/heat source. This framing matters as much as the result.

4. Natural Easter Egg Dyeing

What you need: Hard-boiled eggs, and any of the following: onion skins (yellow/orange), red cabbage (blue/purple), turmeric (yellow), beetroot (pink/red), spinach (green). A pan, water, and a few minutes of simmering time.

What to do: Simmer each natural material in water for about 20 minutes, strain the liquid, and place a hard-boiled egg in each coloured bath for at least an hour (longer gives more intense colour). The eggs take on the pigment from each plant material.

The science: Plants produce pigments for a range of reasons: attracting pollinators, warning off predators, protecting cells from UV damage, and regulating chemical processes. The colours that transfer to the eggs come from these pigments — and they vary considerably depending on the pH of the water. Red cabbage juice is a natural pH indicator and shifts colour noticeably if you add a drop of vinegar (acid) or bicarbonate of soda (alkaline).

This last point gives you a useful extension activity if you want to push the chemistry further.

5. Go on a Flowers and Blossom Walk

What to do: Print the spotter sheet and head outside. Work through the sheet identifying spring flowers and blossoms you can find — cherry, apple, blackthorn, hawthorn, and common wildflowers depending on what is growing nearby. You can record what you find and where. Take photos on an ipad or phone to study later.

The science: This is a straightforward observation and classification activity, but there is genuine scientific thinking to prompt here. Why do trees blossom in spring? What is blossom for? (Pollination, and the production of fruit later in the year.) Why do different trees blossom at different times? What insects were visiting the flowers, and why?

It also gives a natural opening into habitats and seasonal change: what does the same tree look like in winter, and what has changed? For older children, you could even introduce the idea of phenology — the study of seasonal biological events — and why scientists track when trees blossom from year to year.

Download the Blossom and Flowers Spotters Sheet here.

There are other spring activities to try too. Visit TreeToolsForSchools for more.

Let me know which activities are your favourite in the comments!

The post Fun Primary Science Activities for Easter appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

There’s also a timing issue. When we ask a question and immediately invite hands, we favour children who process quickly and are confident enough to volunteer. We miss the thoughtful ones who need a moment. We also miss the quieter children entirely.

The good news is simple: a handful of structured questioning techniques can shift this dynamic entirely. These aren’t complicated strategies. They’re straightforward tweaks that take seconds to explain and can be used in any subject, any year group, any lesson.

Five Questioning Techniques to Try

1. Turn to Your Neighbour

This is the simplest approach. You ask a question, then ask children to discuss their answer with someone sitting nearby before reporting back to you or the class.

Why it works: It removes the pressure of being “put on the spot.” Children have thinking time. Quieter children get to rehearse their ideas before speaking to the whole group. And because everyone’s talking, you get a genuine snapshot of what the class understands, not just what the confident hands-raisers think.

How to use it: “Turn to your neighbour and tell them what you think happens when we mix these two liquids.” Wait for the murmur of conversation to die down, then invite a few pairs to share back. This takes two minutes, maximum.

2. Think Pair Share

This is a more structured version of the above. Children first think individually, then pair up to discuss, then share back with the class or with you.

Why it works: The individual thinking time is crucial. It gives every child, regardless of processing speed, a chance to form their own idea before hearing anyone else’s. The pair discussion then allows them to test their thinking and build confidence. By the time they share, they’ve already thought it through twice.

How to use it: “Think about this: why might a plant need roots? Think for 30 seconds. Now turn to your partner and share your ideas. Then we’ll hear from a few of you.” Again, this is quick and inclusive. No one’s caught off guard.

3. Cold Calling

Cold calling means the teacher asks a question first, then selects a child to answer, rather than waiting for hands.

The critical detail: Ask the question before you name the child. If you say the name first (“Emma, why do we need photosynthesis?”), the rest of the class switches off. They know it’s not their turn. But if you ask the question first, everyone thinks about it, because anyone could be chosen.

Why it works: It keeps the whole class accountable. Every child knows they might be asked. It also distributes thinking more fairly across the room. You’re not just hearing from the keen volunteers; you’re getting input from every child.

How to use it: Keep it low-stakes and supportive. If a child doesn’t know, offer a prompt or bounce the question to someone else. The goal is thinking, not putting anyone on the spot.

4. Mini Whiteboards

Give each child a small whiteboard and pen. When you ask a question, they write or draw their answer and hold it up.

Why it works: Everyone answers every question. You can scan the room in seconds and see who’s understood and who hasn’t. It’s also less intimidating than speaking. A child who struggles to vocalise their thinking can draw a quick diagram or write a word. And there’s no “correct” handwriting anxiety; it’s meant to be quick and rough.

How to use it: Use mini whiteboards for quick-fire questions, true/false statements, multiple choice, diagrams, or labelling tasks. “Write down one thing you remember about the water cycle.” Hold them up. Done.

5. Bounce It

The teacher asks a question. A child gives an answer. If that child isn’t sure, they can “bounce” the question to another child, who must then explain the answer back to the original child before the original child reports to you.

Why it works: It’s collaborative and removes the shame of “not knowing.” The bounced child helps explain, so both children get thinking time. And because the original child still has to report back, they can’t just opt out. It’s like “phone a friend” in a quiz, but with teeth.

How to use it: “I’ll ask a question. If you’re not sure, you can bounce it to a friend. But you still have to tell me the answer at the end.”

Classroom Application: How to Start

Step 1: Choose One Technique

Don’t try all five at once. Pick the one that feels most natural to you. If you like quick interactions, start with Mini Whiteboards. If you prefer pair talk, begin with Think Pair Share. Master one, then add another.

Step 2: Introduce It Clearly

Tell the children what you’re doing and why. “We’re going to try something called Think Pair Share. Here’s how it works…” Kids respond well to transparency. They’ll buy in faster if they understand the purpose.

Step 3: Use It Consistently

Try your chosen technique in three or four lessons in a row. It’ll start to feel natural to you, and children will know what to expect. Once it’s embedded, add another technique.

Why This Matters

Questioning isn’t a nice-to-have in teaching. It’s where learning happens. But only if everyone’s thinking, not just the handful with their hands up.

These five techniques take no special resources and no training. They’re strategies you can use tomorrow. They’ll increase engagement, boost thinking time, help you spot misconceptions faster, and build a classroom culture where every child knows their ideas matter.

Give them a go. See what works for your class.

The post 5 Questioning Techniques That Transform Student Discussions appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

Most of us have been there. You’ve found a brilliant teaching resource online, or you’ve got your curriculum documents sorted, and you know there’s a lesson waiting to be built from it all. But turning that raw material into actual classroom-ready resources takes time. A lot of time. You need slides, maybe a quiz to check understanding, perhaps some flashcards for revision, an overview document for parents. It’s the kind of work that eats a weekend.

Now imagine doing all of that in about half an hour.

That’s not an exaggeration. It’s what Notebook LM can do for you.

The Hallucination Problem

If you’ve played around with ChatGPT or other general AI tools, you’ve probably encountered hallucination. You ask it a question, and it sounds confident but entirely makes up facts. For teachers, this is a genuine concern. You’re not going to use a tool in the classroom if you can’t trust what it’s saying.

Notebook LM solves this by being what Google calls a “walled garden” AI. You give it your documents, your lesson plans, your curriculum guidance, your knowledge organisers. It then works only with what you’ve provided. It cannot access the internet to invent facts. Every piece of information it produces is traceable back to a source you’ve already vetted and uploaded. This makes it fundamentally different from general-purpose AI tools, and for schools, it’s a game-changer for trust and reliability.

For schools concerned about GDPR or data privacy, Notebook LM is also covered under Google Workspace for Education terms of service. Your data isn’t reviewed by anyone and isn’t used to train AI models. That matters.

What Can You Actually Do With It?

The core idea is simple: upload your materials, and Notebook LM generates multiple different versions of content from them. Here’s what’s available.

Audio Overviews: These create a conversational podcast between two hosts discussing your topic. Brilliant for passive learning. Students can listen while they’re walking, revising, or commuting. You can also use interactive mode, where students ask questions via their microphone and the AI responds.

Video Summaries: Similar to audio, but with visuals and slides. A mini-lesson, essentially, built from your source material and ready to share.

Study Guides and Briefing Documents: Structured written summaries of your materials. Perfect for briefing parents about what children will be learning, or for creating revision documents.

Flashcards and Quizzes: Instant assessment tools. You set the difficulty level (easy, medium, hard), and it generates cards or quiz questions based on your documents. You can download them or use them directly.

Slide Decks: A presentation built from your materials. You can ask it to revise specific slides by providing feedback, or download it as a PDF and import it into PowerPoint or Canva for further editing.

Mind Maps: Visual representations showing how concepts link together. Useful for showing the “bigger picture” of a unit of work.

Infographics: Visual summaries of key information, suitable for printing or displaying on screens.

Data Tables: If you’ve got lots of structured information, it can organise it into tabular form.

All of these are generated from whatever documents you’ve uploaded. The tool respects what you’ve given it and doesn’t wander off inventing content.

How You Use It: The Basics

You don’t need to be technical. The workflow is straightforward.

Step 1: Create a notebook and upload your sources. Go to notebooklm.google.com, create a new notebook, and drag in your materials. You can upload PDFs, Word documents, images, and files from Google Drive. You can also paste URLs (including YouTube video links and blog posts) directly into the tool, and it will extract the information.

Step 2: Ask it questions or choose what you want to generate. If you want to chat and ask specific questions about your materials, you can do that. Or, go to the Studio tab and select the type of content you want: audio, video, quiz, flashcards, infographic, whatever suits your need.

Step 3: Customise if needed. For each output type, you can add instructions. For example, you could tell it: “Create flashcards at KS2 level” or “Make a quiz suitable for Year 5 students.” You can also set up a custom persona so it responds in a particular way.

Step 4: Download or share. Once generated, you can download everything (MP3s, PDFs, PowerPoint files, etc.) or get a sharing link to email to colleagues or add to your learning platform.

That’s really it. No complex setup, no coding, no steep learning curve.

Real Use Cases for Your School

For lesson preparation: Upload your scheme of work, any knowledge organisers, your lesson plans, and related curriculum documents. Generate slides, flashcards, and a quiz. What might have taken you a day now takes an hour.

For revision and assessment: Upload a unit’s worth of content and generate multiple revision resources: audio overviews, study guides, flashcards. Students can revise in different ways depending on how they learn best.

For parent communication: Create a study guide or briefing document from your term’s scheme of work. Parents get a clear summary of what their children will be learning and how they can support them at home.

For SEND support: Upload an EHCP or pupil profile alongside your lesson plan, and ask Notebook LM to identify where additional scaffolding is needed and suggest adaptations. Because the data stays within a walled garden, it’s much safer than using general AI tools for documents containing sensitive student information.

For staff CPD: Upload a research paper, Ofsted report, or school development plan. Generate an audio overview, discussion prompts, and a briefing document for a staff meeting.

For covering lessons: Create a study guide and quiz so supply staff have clear, curriculum-aligned resources to work with.

A Few Things Worth Knowing

Quality depends on what you give it. If you upload weak or inaccurate source documents, the outputs will reflect that. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. But if your source materials are solid, the results are reliably good.

Always check the audio and video outputs before sharing. Occasionally, these can misrepresent nuance in complex topics. Listen or watch through first, especially for sensitive or intricate subjects. A quick check takes minutes and saves headaches.

You may already have access to it in school. If your school uses Google Workspace, Notebook LM is already available to you. If you’re unsure, ask your IT department or school admin. They may need to enable it for your school’s workspace, but that’s a straightforward admin task.

Integration with Google Classroom is possible, but again, your admin team needs to have enabled it. If you’re keen to use it at scale with your classes, it’s worth asking your IT support whether they’ve set this up.

Three Classroom-Ready Steps to Start Today

1. Identify one unit of work you’re teaching soon. Pick something you’d normally spend time creating resources for. Gather all your source materials: curriculum documents, lesson plans, knowledge organisers, any background reading you use.

2. Create a Notebook LM notebook and upload everything. Spend ten minutes uploading your materials. Don’t overthink it. The tool works best when you give it plenty of context.

3. Generate one type of resource and try it with your class. Start small. Maybe generate a quiz for a lesson, or an audio overview for revision. See what works for you and your students. Once you’ve tried one thing, you’ll quickly see where else it fits into your workflow.

That’s genuinely all you need to do to start saving yourself time.

The Bottom Line

Notebook LM sits in that sweet spot between being genuinely useful and being something you can actually trust to use in a school setting. It doesn’t pretend to know things it doesn’t. It doesn’t invent facts. And it saves you a substantial amount of preparation time.

If you’re already drowning in admin and resource creation, this is worth a serious look. Especially if your school already has Google Workspace set up, there’s no reason not to give it a try. The time you save preparing one unit might be enough to get your marking done, or just to breathe for an afternoon.

And that’s not nothing.

Free Downloads

This 12-page kit gives you everything you need to set up your first notebook, configure it properly, and start generating useful classroom outputs straight away.

Inside you’ll find a step-by-step setup checklist, a ready-to-use custom persona for primary science (plus a blank version for any subject), a curated list of free UK curriculum sources, and the five-document source structure from the States of Matter demo so you can replicate it for your own topics.

The bonus page includes ten specific prompts written for primary teachers — the questions that produce the most directly usable planning and classroom materials.

Download the Free Notebook LM for Teachers Toolkit here

Let me know what you think in the comments.

The post Notebook LM : A Full Tutorial for Teachers appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

1. Defining a “True” Plant

First we take a look at addressing the technical definition of a plant. To be classified as a plant, an organism needs a vascular system (a system of tubes), roots, leaves, a stem, and flowers [02:32].

• Key Distinction: Seaweed is technically algae, not a plant, because it lacks proper roots and internal tube systems [03:42].
• Fungi: Mushrooms and molds are not plants; they belong to their own kingdom and do not photosynthesize [04:20].

2. Essential Resources: SAPS

One of the most valuable recommendations in the video is the Science and Plants for Schools (SAPS) website (saps.org.uk). It offers a “gold mine” of primary resources, including guides for dissecting flowers, role-playing pollination, and downloadable PDF booklets [08:34].

3. Progression of the Curriculum

The topic of plants evolves significantly through the year groups [10:08]:

• EYFS/Year 1 & 2: Focuses on identifying and naming plants, understanding what they need to stay alive, and observing growth from seeds and bulbs.
• Year 3: Delves into the parts of flowering plants, the requirements for growth, and the life cycle (pollination, seed formation, and dispersal).
• Year 4-6: The focus shifts toward classification, habitats, and how plants adapt to their environment [10:39].

4. Tackling Common Misconceptions

Children often bring “mental models” to class that need debunking [11:21]:

• “Plants aren’t alive”: Because they don’t move obviously, children may think they aren’t living. Using time-lapse videos can show that plants move quite a bit during the day [18:20].
• “Seeds need sunlight to germinate”: Most seeds actually germinate better in the dark; they only need light once leaves appear to start photosynthesizing [12:37].
• “Soil is food”: Plants make their own food; soil provides minerals and anchorage, but isn’t “eaten” [12:37].

5. Practical Activities and Experiments

• Eating the Plant: Use supermarket produce to show which parts of a plant we eat—carrots (roots), rhubarb (stems), lettuce (leaves), and tomatoes (fruit) [13:57].
• Flower Dissection: In Year 3, dissecting lilies or tulips (which have clear, large parts) is a great way to learn about the stamen (male) and carpel (female) components [32:31].
• Water Transport: Using celery in colored water is a classic experiment. Tip: Use powdered food dye rather than gel-based supermarket dyes for better results in showing water moving through the xylem [35:47].

6. The “Weight” of a Tree

A fascinating concept for older students (and teachers) is where a tree’s mass comes from. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t the soil or primarily the water—most of a plant’s weight comes from the carbon dioxide it absorbs from the air, which it converts into sugars [28:43].

7. School Gardening & “Bright Ideas”

The session concludes with an encouraging call to get children growing. You don’t need a large field; “Square Foot Gardening” is an excellent way to grow variety in a small space [38:29]. Additionally, using PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting) prompts—like “What if humans could photosynthesize?”—can spark deep scientific discussion and curiosity [39:26].

The post Teaching Plants in Primary School: Webinar appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

However, many people try AI once or twice, receive a fairly generic response, and conclude that the technology isn’t that useful.

In most cases, the problem isn’t the AI.

It’s the prompt.

When you structure your prompt carefully and provide enough context, AI tools can produce much more useful outputs. In the video that accompanies this post, I explain a simple framework you can use to improve your prompts.

But if you’re short on time, here are 10 practical prompts you can copy and use straight away.

These prompts work well with tools such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude and similar AI assistants, and they can be adapted for both primary and secondary teaching.

See this video for more:

1. Lesson Plan Generator

Useful for quickly drafting a structured lesson.

Act as an experienced teacher of [subject].Create a [length] lesson on [topic] following the [Curriculum - eg National Curriculum or Syllabus].
Context: My students are [Age/Year Group] and they already know [Prior Knowledge]. I have access to [Resources, e.g., iPads/Lab equipment].
Reference: Use a 'hook-model-practice-review' structure similar to Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction."

Include:
• learning objective
• key vocabulary
• common misconceptions
• starter activity
• main teaching activity
• hinge questions to check understanding
• exit ticket
Fomat: Output as a table with columns for: Time | Teacher Activity | Pupil Activity | Assessment

2. Differentiated Task Creator

Helps adapt activities for mixed ability classes.

Act as a literacy specialist working in education. Your Task is to rewrite the provided text for three different reading levels. Create a classroom activity on [topic] for [year group].
Provide three versions:
• Support: Simplified vocabulary and shorter sentences for EAL/ESL students.
• Core: For students working at age-related expectations.
• Challenge: High-challenge version with advanced Tier 3 vocabulary.
Reference: [Paste your original text/article here].
Each version should aim at the same learning objective but vary the level of scaffolding.Include example answers.
Evaluate: Ensure Version B includes a 'Key Vocabulary' glossary at the bottom."

3. Multiple Choice Question Generator

Great for retrieval practice and quizzes.

Act as a expert [Subject] Lead Teacher. Generate 8 multiple choice questions on [topic] suitable for [year group].
Curriculum: Ensure all questions align with the [e.g., GCSE / AQA / IB] specification.
Each question should include:
• one correct answer
• three distractors based on common misconceptions. Each distractor must be a plausible misconception
Output as a table with columns:
A table with: Question | A | B | C | D | Correct Letter | Misconception Explained.
Evaluate: At the end, tell me which question you think will be the 'trickiest' for students and why

4. Hinge Question Creator

Very useful for formative assessment.

Act as a Lead Teacher in [Subject]. Your Task is to write 3 'Hinge Questions' for a lesson on [Specific Concept, e.g., Fractions].
Context: These should be multiple-choice questions where every wrong answer (distractor) reveals a specific misconception.
Format: List the question, the 4 options (A-D), and a brief explanation of what each wrong answer tells me about the student’s thinking.
Iterate: If the questions are too easy, I will ask you to make them more conceptually challenging

5. Worksheet Creator

Useful when you need a quick independent task.

Act as a Lead Teacher in [Subject]. Create a worksheet on [topic] for [year group].The worksheet should take approximately [10–20] minutes to complete.Include:
• short explanation
• 5–8 questions
• one challenge question
Use clear, age-appropriate language.

6. Simplify a Complex Explanation

Good for adapting difficult material.

Act as an expert teacher in [subject]. Explain [topic] so that a [year group] pupil can understand it. Use:
• simple language
• an everyday analogy
• a short step-by-step explanation
Limit your explanation to 150 words.

7. Retrieval Practice Starter

Perfect for beginning lessons.

Act as an expert [Subject] teacher specializing in cognitive science. Your Task is to create a 5-question retrieval practice starter for [Year Group].
Context: Use a 'Spaced Retrieval' model. Please provide:
1 Question: From our most recent lesson on [Topic 1].
2 Questions: From our unit last week on [Topic 2].
2 Questions: From a topic we covered last term: [Topic 3].
Constraint: Questions should be 'low-stakes' and take no more than 5 minutes for students to complete. Avoid multiple choice; focus on short-answer recall.
Format: Present this as a 2x3 grid (the final box being a 'Challenge Question'). Include an answer key at the bottom with one common misconception for each.

8. Parent Email Draft

Saves time on communication.

Act as an experienced, approachable [Year Group/Subject] teacher. Your Task is to draft an email to parents regarding [Situation].
Context: Our school culture is [e.g., warm and community-focused / formal and academic]. The goal of this email is to [e.g., reassure parents / request a specific action / inform them of a change].
Constraint: Use placeholders like [Student Name] or [Date]. Keep the length between 120–150 words. Avoid 'educationalese' (jargon) and stick to a 'supportive but professional' tone.
Format: Include a clear, non-alarming Subject Line and a 'Next Steps' section at the end if applicable.
Rule: No flowery AI language like 'I hope this email finds you well'—just get straight to the point politely."

9. Feedback Comment Generator

Useful for reports or marking summaries.

Act as a supportive and professional teacher. Your Task is to turn my bulleted notes into a formal end-of-term report comment.
Context: The comment should be roughly [Number] words long. Focus on both academic progress and character.
Reference: Use this style: 'John has shown great resilience in... He needs to focus on...' [Paste a previous 'perfect' comment you’ve written here for style].
My Notes: [Paste: e.g., Sarah, great at algebra, sometimes shy to speak up, always helps others, 85% on final test].

⚠️ The Golden Rule for Teachers: Never put sensitive student data (Full names, IDs, or medical info) into an AI. Use first names only or placeholders like [Student A].

10. Lesson Reflection Assistant

Helps with professional reflection.

Act as an expert teaching mentor and instructional coach. I am going to provide a summary of a lesson I just taught.
Task: Ask me three reflective questions that would help me improve the lesson next time.
Context: The lesson was for [Year Group/Subject]. My main goal for the lesson was [e.g., for students to master long division]. My specific area for professional development right now is [e.g., reducing teacher talk time / improving questioning / behavior transitions].
Reference: Frame your questions based on [e.g., Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction / The Great Teaching Toolkit].
Format: Present the questions clearly, and for each question, provide a one-sentence 'Why this matters' explanation.
Lesson Summary: Here is a short description of my lesson:[paste lesson summary] 

Optional Bonus Prompt

Improve My Prompt

This helps teachers get better results automatically.

Here is a prompt I am using with AI:[paste prompt]
How could I improve this prompt to produce a more useful result for teaching?
Suggest additional context or constraints.

The post 10 AI Prompts Every Teacher Should Save appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

I’m currently carrying out a small-scale research project to explore how primary teachers and student teachers are using generative AI in their day-to-day teaching, with a particular focus on the teaching of primary science. The aim is to build a clearer picture of what is actually happening in classrooms, rather than relying on assumptions or headlines.

The short survey looks at:

• whether and how teachers are using generative AI
• the purposes it is being used for (e.g. planning, explanations, assessment)
• how confident teachers feel using these tools
• perceived benefits, limitations and concerns, especially around scientific accuracy

The survey should take around 10 minutes to complete, and all responses are anonymous. The findings will be used to inform future professional discussions, training and guidance around the effective and responsible use of AI in primary education.

If you are a primary teacher, ECT or student teacher, I would be very grateful if you could take part.

Please click here to access the survey.

Thank you in advance for contributing to this research – your experiences and perspectives are genuinely valuable.

The post How are primary teachers using generative AI in science? appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

You can download the activity packs from the British Science Week site here.

For help running a science week check out this post by Dr Jo, and this from British Science Association.

There are several providers running Live Lessons that your Primary-age pupils can log into. There’s also plenty of other websites that offer practical ideas for activities you could run in your school during a science week (or any other time). Here’s some of them.

Live Lessons

BBC Horrible Science Live Lesson

This Live Lesson will be packed with curriculum-linked fun as children make a movie starring the Moon from CBBC’s Horrible Science.

During the lesson, aimed at 7-11 year-olds, pupils will investigate light energy and learn about the Moon and our solar system to ensure their final script is science fact, rather than science fiction.

Lesson takes place 9th March 2026, but can be watched any time after that. More details here https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/live-lessons

You can access more science week-related videos from the BBC here.

Tech She Can – Space and AI Live Lessons

Tech Charity Tech She Can are running a series of live lessons for KS2 (and older). Virtual Live Lessons and Assemblies are both hosted on Microsoft teams. Live Lessons include paper-based tasks and partner discussions, so are best suited to joining from a classroom, rather than an assembly. Lessons available include:

• Space Tech for Human Health 9^th March
• AI for Robotics 19^th March
• Space Tech for Communication 11^th March

They also offer live lessons for Internet Safety Day and more. Get more details here: https://techshecan.org/live-assemblies

PSTT What’s Your Question?

The Primary Science Teaching Trust are running a day of Live Lessons for different regions in England and Wales.

There are 4 lessons in a day, one per phase, and they cost £95 for whole school. In addition each school gets a guidance pack with timings, Zoom link and resource lists.

More details: https://pstt.org.uk/events/online-science-days-2026

School Project Ideas

The following resources could be used at any time, not just in Science Week. They provide ideas for class practical work, that could then be written up/turned into posters and presented to parents at the end of the week.

NFU Farming STEMterprise

Farming STEMterprise projects take children through each stage of setting up a farm shop business: considering seasonality when deciding which crop to grow, growing their own ingredients, considering nutrition when designing their recipes, using market research to test their ideas out with potential consumers, working within a budget when buying additional ingredients, learning knife skills when making their products, calculating expected profit, designing responsible packaging and much more.

More details: https://education.nfuonline.com/Stemterprise

Climate Detectives Kids

Produced by Esero, Climate Detectives Kids challenges students to make a difference by engaging with Earth’s environment to help protect it. In this project students will complete activities focusing on Earth’s environment, collect evidence of their discoveries and earn badges for each activity!

Teams that submit one activity will receive a silver badge. If teams complete two activities, they will receive a gold badge plus a virtual certificate as a recognition of their detective work to understand and protect our home planet.

More details: https://climatedetectives.esa.int/kids

Moon Camp Challenge

Take students on a space adventure by letting them design a habitat on the Moon or beyond. Moon Camp has an open format, meaning that students can design a space habitat with a design tool of their choice.

Moon Camp is a partnership between ESA and the national ESEROs and the Airbus Foundation. All teams that submit a project will receive a participation certificate and will be invited to the final online livestream event with an astronaut.

More details: https://mooncampchallenge.org. For ideas of how to implement Moon Camp into other curriculum subjects, have a look at this page with subject examples.

Institute of Education and Technology KS2 Ideas

The IET has produced a bank of Science Week KS2 resources which enable you to cover some core science topics at key stage 2 in your primary school, as the children explore and learn through discovery.

Access them here: https://education.theiet.org/primary/themed-primary-resources/science-week-resources-for-primary/science-week-activities-for-ks2

Practical Action

Practical Action provide free science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) resources to engage children in real world issues including climate change, renewable energy, food security and disaster preparedness. Their STEM challenges make ideal activities for primary and secondary aged children. Each challenge is easy to navigate with resources including Teacher’s guides, activity sheets, PowerPoint slides, posters and certificates.

Whether your children are developing a floating garden, investigating the properties of plastics or designing a model of a hand washing device for a school in Kenya, they’ll love developing their own ingenious solution to a real world problem.

More details: https://practicalaction.org/schools

Crest Awards

Inspiring and impactful projects in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) that engage and reward young people, unlocking potential and developing skills.

All CREST resources are free to view and download and can be used by anyone. Once the projects are complete, you can apply for a CREST Award certificate!

More details: https://www.crestawards.org

Royal Society of Chemistry

The RSC site has a wealth of practical ideas for the primary classroom. Some good ones for Science Week include

From Kitchen to Classroom or Edible Experiments

Royal Institution ExpeRimental

The RI have produced a great series of videos of simple practicals you could do at home. Send the link to the parents of your children, and encourage them to try some out as a family.

You can see all the videos here.

If you have any other great ideas, resources or sources of Live Lessons, please share them in the comments!

Good luck!

The post Live Lessons and Resources for Science Week 2026 appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

The reviewers said

“An essential book for all trainee teachers and would be a useful addition for science subject leaders to have in their grasp to support their ideas for additional links to sustainability and valuable websites and sources of support and information but also to help guide and encourage other teachers too”

“An excellent and thorough guide for primary science which includes working scientifically, misconceptions and a varied list of scientists from a range of different backgrounds.”

What is “Science Fix”?

Science Fix is a practical, easy-to-use guide that supports primary teachers in delivering engaging science lessons with confidence. Danny Nicholson clearly explains each area of the primary science curriculum, building teachers’ subject knowledge while offering practical strategies, clear planning advice, and ready-to-use activities that encourage scientific thinking in the classroom. By tackling common misconceptions and focusing on what it really means to work scientifically, this book equips teachers with the tools they need to help children explore, question, and learn like young scientists.

You can buy it from most online booksellers including Amazon, Millgate House and Waterstones.

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Today, they published their final report, which you can read here.

In this blog post I’ll take a look at the section reporting on Primary School science. There’s quite a bit on primary science, and it takes into account quite a few recent reports such as 10 Key Issues, and the Ofsted Finding the Optimum report.

The main takeaways are summarised below.

Key Takeaways for Primary Science Teachers

1. Lack of Consistency and Coherence

• Primary science is taught inconsistently across schools, with variations in how much time is given to it and how well the curriculum content connects between topics and key stages.
• This inconsistency leads to gaps and repetition when pupils move to secondary school, making transition more difficult.

2. Curriculum Redesign and Clearer Guidance

• The review calls for a more structured and coherent curriculum across Key Stages 1–4.
• Expect clearer guidance on what should be taught, at what depth, and when.
• The aim is to ensure pupils build progressively on foundational knowledge rather than relearning the same material.
• Redrafting will likely clarify what essential knowledge and skills all pupils should master in KS1 and KS2.

3. Balancing the Science Disciplines

• The current primary curriculum is unevenly weighted toward biology, with less focus on chemistry and physics.
• Future guidance will encourage a better balance between all three disciplines, helping children gain a broader scientific foundation.

4. Cross-Curricular Links and Progression

• Stronger connections are needed between:
  • Science and other subjects (e.g., maths, geography, DT).
  • Primary and secondary science content.
• The goal is to avoid unnecessary repetition and make learning feel more connected and purposeful.

5. Real-World and Inclusive Science

• Teachers should use inclusive examples of scientists and scientific work so that all pupils can see themselves in science.
• The emphasis remains on scientific knowledge and concepts, not biographies — but inclusive representation is encouraged to boost engagement and aspiration.

6. Practical Science with Purpose

• Hands-on practical work has declined since 2016, and much is now delivered via video.
• The review stresses the importance of high-quality, purposeful practical science — both teacher demonstrations and pupil investigations.
• Practical activities should:
  • Be linked clearly to curriculum goals.
  • Reinforce key concepts and skills.
  • Develop procedural confidence with equipment.
• Expect future guidance and mapping showing which topics lend themselves to specific types of practical work.

7. Climate Science Integration

• The current curriculum gives limited attention to climate change and some content is outdated.
• A revision will likely embed climate science across disciplines, rather than treating it as an isolated topic.
• Pupils should understand the scientific causes, impacts, and solutions to climate change — linking to green careers and STEM growth.

8. Critical Thinking and Media Literacy

• Science education should help children evaluate evidence, question claims, and identify misinformation.
• Developing pupils’ ability to think scientifically and assess sources critically is seen as essential for scientific literacy and citizenship.

Recommendations

The report recomments that the government:

• Ensures more cohesion and consistency across the primary Science curriculum, including clearer guidance on what should be taught, to what depth, at each stage.

• At all key stages, bases the Science curriculum on the fundamental concepts of each individual discipline so that students develop deep scientific and disciplinary knowledge and skills. In light of this, the Government should consider where content can be streamlined, without affecting rigour or the subject’s knowledge-rich focus.
• Ensures that the curriculum more clearly articulates the purpose and expectations of high-quality practical work in supporting the building of substantive knowledge and the development of important skills and procedural knowledge.
• Ensures that, in relevant areas, the Science curriculum explicitly develops students’ understanding of the scientific principles that explain climate change and sustainability and the global efforts to tackle them.

In Summary

Primary science reform will likely bring:

• A clearer, more sequenced curriculum with balanced coverage.
• More focus on hands-on learning with purpose.
• Stronger links across subjects and key stages.
• Updated and inclusive examples of science in action.
• Greater emphasis on climate science and critical thinking.

If you’ve read the report, what are your views? Share them in the comments below.

The post The Curriculum Review: What it means for Primary Science appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

As an alternative to tulips you can try alstroemeria. Lillies are also good as they have large anthers and stamen, but the pollen can be a problem as it stains easily, and some children can be allergic to it.

Digital microscopes and hand lenses will also be useful for taking a closer look at the structure of flowers.

Flower Structure

Flowers contain the parts a plant needs to reproduce. Most plants have both male and female reproductive organs. Flowers have brightly coloured petals and a nice smell which attract insects. They often produce a sweet liquid called nectar to make it worthwhile for the insects to visit.

The male part of a flower is called the stamen. They are made of thin hairs called filaments, with a bulbous end called the anther. The anthers produce the pollen.

Pollen grains are as tiny as specks of dust, and they contain the male genetic material – half the information needed to make a whole new plant.

The female parts of the plant are called the carpel (or pistil). They are made up of the stigma, style and ovary. Inside the ovary are tiny eggs which also contain half the information needed to make a new plant.

Pollination 

The transfer of pollen, from an anther to a stigma, is called pollination. The pollen travels from the anther of one flower, and then eventually lands on the stigma of another flower. This can be carried out by insects, or by the wind.

Once the pollen has landed on the stigma, it grows a tube down the style to the ovary where it joins with the egg to fertilise it. The egg now has a complete set of genetic information needed to make a new plant.

The post How to Do a Flower Dissection : Tulip appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

As teachers, we have the opportunity to highlight the vital role women have played in shaping scientific discovery and technological advancement. By sharing these stories with our students, we not only provide role models but also encourage more girls to see STEM as a place where they belong.

While many students may have heard of figures like Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace, there are countless other women whose work has shaped our understanding of the world. Here are four inspiring women in STEM you might like to introduce to your class:

Mary Leakey was a prominent British paleoanthropologist who made remarkable discoveries of hominid fossils in East Africa, including the famous fossil footprints at Laetoli, significantly advancing our understanding of human evolution.

Eunice Newton Foote was an American scientist. In 1856 she was the first person to publish a scientific paper showing the link between carbon dioxide and atmospheric warming, what we now call the Greenhouse Effect.

Agnes Arber was a British plant anatomist and morphologist. She was only the third woman to be made a Fellow of the Royal Society. She was the first woman to receive a Gold medal of the Linnean Society.

Hertha Marks Ayrton was a British physicist and engineer. She made significant contributions to the field of electrical engineering, particularly in the study of electric arcs and was the first female member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers

You can download a poster about these women here.

Bringing Their Stories into the Classroom

Teaching about women in STEM can help challenge stereotypes and show all students that science is for everyone. Here are some ways you can incorporate these trailblazing women into your lessons:

• Research projects on their contributions and discoveries
• Discussions about the challenges women in STEM have faced historically
• Hands-on science activities inspired by their work

Looking for more diverse scientists to share with your class? Explore our list of Scientists in the National Curriculum for even more inspiration.

The post International Women’s Day: Women in STEM appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

Charles Darwin developed his theory in the late 1830s, following his observations of the natural world whilst travelling on the HMS Beagle. Once back in the UK Darwin was able to start working out his theory of evolution. Darwin was worried about the public response to his theory, and so he didn’t publish for over 20 years.

But Darwin wasn’t the only scientist working on evolution. At the same time, another English scientist called Alfred Russel Wallace had also been developing his theory of natural selection whilst travelling Malaysia collecting animal specimens. In 1858 he wrote to Darwin outlining his ideas. This spurred Darwin into action, and they published a joint paper outlining the theory of evolution by natural selection. But whilst Darwin went on to capitalise on this idea, Wallace went back to travelling the world.

Darwin’s famous book “The Origin of Species” was published in 1859 and it immediately became a best-seller. It caused significant controversy at the time, as it challenged the view that God had created all the different forms of life on Earth. It also implied that all living things shared a common ancestor, and that humans had evolved from apes. Many people at the time found this deeply distasteful and it caused quite a scandal.

Activity Ideas

Bird Beaks

Resources (per group):

• Chopsticks
• Tweezers
• Two bowls
• Sunflower seeds, dried peas or raisins
• Stopclock

Fill one bowl with raisins or seeds. Ask the children to use the chopsticks and see how many seeds/raisins they can pick up and transfer to the empty bowl in 30 seconds. Do this several times to get an average. Then ask them to repeat this using the tweezers.

Discuss which tool was the best for picking up the raisins? If they were a bird who mainly ate raisins, would they be better with long beak like the chopsticks, or a small beak like the tweezers.

As an extension, the children could find out about different birds such as ducks, eagles, flamingos and hummingbirds and explain how their beaks are adapted to the foods they eat. You could also introduce other foods, and other objects to “eat” them.

Link: Darwins Finches

During his time on the Galapagos Islands, Darwin collected specimens of the different species of finch living on the island. It wasn’t until he returned to the UK that he studied these specimens and realised how important they were.

By noticing that finches on the different islands had beaks that were adapted to their environment and realizing that finches whose beaks weren’t adapted wouldn’t survive, Darwin was able to start working out his theory of evolution. The Galápagos finches are a classic example of adaptive radiation. Their common ancestor arrived on the islands a few million years ago. Since then, a single species has evolved into different species that are adapted to fill different lifestyles.

Camouflaged Worms

Each group will need

• Metre stick
• Roll of string
• Scissors
• Pipe cleaners or coloured wool in 5 different colours
• Stopclock
• 4 sticks

Cut the pipe cleaner or wool into 1-2cm lengths, so that you have 20 pieces of each colour

Go out onto the school field and measure out a 5m x 5m square. Use the string to mark the boundaries using a stick in each corner.

One member of the group should scatter the pieces around the marked area.

Another member of the group (the predator) then has 1 minute to pick up as many pieces as possible.

Count and record how many of each colour were found.

Discuss with the children which colours were easy to spot and which were more difficult.

A similar experiment can be carried out inside using sheets of white paper and newspaper and small squares cut from each type of paper. Drop the squares on the large sheet of white paper and see how quickly you can collect them up. Swap to the newspaper and compare.

Quick Ideas

Mixed up animals

The children could cut up pictures or use computer software to build up new animals from the body parts of several different ones. They could then explain how these animals have adapted to a particular habitat, how they move, how they hunt or avoid predators etc.

You could use AI to generate the animals. Read this guide to find out more.

Candy Evolution

Count out 30 small sweets and 30 raisins into a small bowl. Pass this around the class and tell the children they are allowed to take, and eat, just one thing from the bowl. Don’t say why. Once back at the front, count out how many sweets and how many raisins are left. Discuss with the children which of the sweets was more likely to be eaten. If they were a small creature in this classroom, would they survive better if they looked like a sweet or a raisin? What would future generations look like?

Camouflage

Ask the children to find out about how different animals camouflage themselves. They could find photographs of different habitats and cut out and colour in paper animals so that they blend in with the photograph.

Galapagos Islands Virtual Field Trip

The children could find out about the Galapagos Islands and the animals and plants that live there. They could even use a Google Street View Trek and go on a virtual field trip to the islands! They could then produce a presentation or a report about the islands.

Read more: Virtual Field Trips

Design a Plant 

The children could be asked to design and draw plant that could live in a particular habitat such as a rainforest canopy, a pond or the desert. The children should consider the problems a plant might have living there, and come up with ingenious ways to get around them. They could label these features and write about them. The children could even build a 3D model of their plant from different materials.

These ideas are taken from my Science Fix book. For more ideas, and a guide to teaching Evolution, buy the book.

The post Darwin Day: Ideas for Teaching Evolution appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

If you’ve not already got something planned for the week, there are quite a few Live Lessons and Webinars being offered by different organisations which you might like to sign up to.

Here’s just a few to explore:

BBC Space Live Lesson with Tim Peake

In this special KS2 science Live Lesson, find out what it takes to become an astronaut. British Astronaut Tim Peake, who himself spent 173 days living on the ISS will be the mission commander, setting curriculum-linked tasks for 7-11 year-olds to join in with throughout the lesson. The 30 minute lesson will be live on the CBBC Channel 10th March at 11am and then available to watch on-demand afterwards online. More details here.

Tech She Can Live Assemblies

Tech charity Tech She Can are running two live assemblies for British Science Week. One on Tech for Living in Space (11th March), and one for Tech for Sustainable AI (12th March). All the details can be found here.

STEM Ambassadors Live Lessons

STEM Learning’s STEM Ambassadors are running a series of live webinars for schools during Science Week. The topics are varied, ranging from a session looking at the sun, to careers information about being a vet or an engineer. You can find out more details, and sign up, here.

Science Farm Live from the NFU

The National Farming Union will be hosting FOUR new, free and curriculum-aligned live lessons for Science Week 2025. The lessons will be exploring all the ways that animals and crops are adapted to their habitats here in Britain and all the ways that British farmers are adapting their practice to fight against climate change.

The sessions are:

• Change Champions for KS1 (10 March 11am)
• Amazing Adaptations Day for Lower KS2 (12 March 11am)
• Amazing Adaptations Day for Upper KS2 (12 March 2pm)
• Amazing Adaptations Day (in Welsh) Diwrnod Addasiadau Anhygoel – 13 March 11am.

Join them to bring your Science week to life, explore key STEM topics in a real-life context and introduce your pupils to another inspiring line up of careers across the food and farming industry. Sign up here.

Developing Experts Live Lesson

Developing Experts will be running a live lesson on Friday 7th March. It will focus on the change and adaptations of reptiles, featuring wildlife expert, Mike Linley.

The live streaming will be:

• EYFS & KS1: Remarkable Reptiles: their changes over time – Friday 7th March at 9.30am
• KS2: Reptiles Uncovered: Adaptations, Habitats and Survival – Friday 7th March at 11am
• KS3: From Scales to Tails: The Evolution and Adaptation of Reptiles (This will not be streamed live but will be available to watch from Friday 7th March.)

The sessions will be pre-recorded but streamed live. More details here.

Encounter Edu: Ocean and Climate Live

Encounter Edu will be celebrating British Science Week with two exciting live lessons exploring this year’s theme of change and adaptation. Their first lesson delves into groundbreaking Antarctic research examining how whales can influence climate through their feeding behaviours. In their second lesson, they’ll investigate the seabed’s crucial role in carbon storage, using cutting-edge eDNA techniques to understand how marine ecosystems contribute to tackling climate change.

• Can Whales Change the Climate? (Age 7+) 11 March 2pm
• CSI Seabed (11+) 13 March 2pm

The lessons should be available to watch on-demand afterwards. Get more information and sign up here.

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It’s called Silly Materials. Ask the children to think of different objects. For each object they think of a silly material to make that object from, and why that material is silly.

Then then can think of a good material to make it from, and what properties that material has that makes it good for the job.

If you want to reinforce this activity, they could look at the poem “Wooly Saucepan” by Michael Rosen from his book Centrally Heated Knickers. You could also explore silly objects like the time Nestle actually made a chocolate teapot.

Got any more fun ideas to teach this unit? Add them in the comments.

For more primary science lesson ideas, check out my book Science Fix.

The post Quick Lesson Idea: Silly Materials appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson

The book is aimed at both experienced and new primary teachers who would like to boost their understanding of science teaching, as well as student teachers who are just embarking on their teaching journey and who would like something to supplement their science SKU lectures.

In this book I will

• Guide you through all areas of the primary science curriculum. 
• Outline the subject knowledge you need for each area, enabling you to teach with confidence. 
• Include practical advice for teaching and guidance on how to plan and deliver sequences of engaging science lessons.
• Outline activities for teaching that promote scientific thinking and help children to work as scientists. 
• Identify common misconceptions, allowing you to anticipate them in planning.
• Ask what working scientifically is and, importantly, what it is not.

If you’d like a preview, you can access one on the Sage website.

You can buy Science Fix in all good online bookstores as paperback or Kindle versions. For example:

Amazon UK/ Amazon US / Amazon Australia / Amazon Canada / Sage / WH Smith / Blackwells

If you’ve bought the book, there’s bonus content available here.

I do hope you like the book. Please spread the word to your science leads and course lecturers and mentors.

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