Overview

Overview Enrich my Classroom has been specifically developed to meet the CREST Discovery Award requirements. By undertaking the activity and completing the reflective CREST Discovery Passports, all your students should be able to achieve an Award. This resource can be delivered in school during lessons, as an extracurricular activity or as an enterprise activity. The project can be completed over 5 lessons or as a one-day event. The challenge Part One: Research Workshops Students are split into teams of 5-7 for this Discovery Day. In part one of the project, team members are split up to join different research workshops, on one of the themes below. Students will be introduced to the science behind these topics and discover more about how they are used in school today. ● Coding: students investigate what we use computer programs for, and how they are designed. ● ● ● ● Nanotechnology: students learn about this field of research and innovation concerned with building materials and devices on the scale of atoms and molecules through exploring specific examples. Ergonomics: students explore the concept of designing products and systems with the needs of the user in mind and investigate how ergonomics is used to design seating and writing products. Magnetism: students discover how information can be stored by adding a magnetic property to a material, looking at the example of credit cards, and computer hard drives, and consider how this has affected the development of technology. Electricity: students find out about sources of electricity that have little or no CO2 emissions such as nuclear power stations and renewable energies and look at ways of meeting school electricity needs using local sources. Part Two: Design Challenge Teams come back together to feedback what they have learned and develop their own innovative ideas for enriching the classroom, based on the ideas from at least two of the workshops. This could mean designing an app, finding a new way to use nanotechnology, or using ergonomics to design a new classroom interior. During this process students will need to research and test their idea. These ideas will be presented to their peers at the end of the session. Learning objectives Students will cover a range of topics linked to the Key Stage 3 science and design and technology curriculum, including areas within the following attainment targets: • Materials (Chemistry) • Electricity and magnetism (Physics) • Waves (Physics) • Energy (Physics) • Design (Design and technology) • Evaluate (Design and technology) • Technical knowledge (Design and technology) 4

Materials Activity Materials Introduction ❏ ❑ Discovery Passports (1 per student) Student Pack (1 per student) Research Workshop: Coding ❏ ❑ ❑ Writing materials Jam sandwich-making items: jam, bread, knife, etc Access to computers for internet research and to analyse survey data Research Workshop: Nanotechnology ❏ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ Writing materials Access to computers for internet research If possible, examples of nanotechnologies, e.g. Magic Sand and Ferrofluid Large gloves, e.g. oven gloves or gardening gloves Beans or counters Research Workshop: Ergonomics ❏ ❑ ❑ ❑ Writing materials Selection of pen types for comparison Materials for designing a pen grip, for example modelling clay Access to computers for internet research Research Workshop: Magnetism ❏ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ Writing materials Calculators Materials for writing magnetic messages: ❑ pieces of plastic and metal ❑ blu-tack or similar to fix the pieces to the surface ❑ card to cover the layout ❑ magnets to read the words Access to computers for research Extra print outs of adjustable grid for laying out and covering binary words Research Workshop: Electricity ❏ ❑ ❑ ❑ Writing materials Calculators Materials for investigating electricity generation, e.g. coils of copper wire, magnets and multi-meter Access to computers for internet research 5