Daytime Moon Viewing

This resource, from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, uses daytime viewing of the Moon to reinforce ideas learned in the classroom about light, shadow and the Moon itself. Advice is given on the best times to view the Moon, and the compulsory and optional equipment needed. By viewing the Moon during the day,...

Fruit Solar System

This activity, from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, helps students grasp the various sizes of planets in our Solar System using mostly fruit, with some other items. The class discussion before the activity encourages students to take an educated guess as to which...

Making Shadows

This activity, from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, looks at how shadows are formed and what affects their size, direction and shape. Students place an object at the centre of a sheet of paper, and use a torch to produce shadows of different length and direction.

This activity can be used as an introduction...

Naked Astronomy

Produced by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), these naked Scientist podcasts look at physics questions in an amusing but also informative way.

The oldest light in the Universe • The Planck mission which measures the cosmic microwave background. • Mapping the surface of...

Posters and Newspapers

The seven posters can be used in class when children are engaged in a space topic. Each file contains an image and a description associated with the image, in large font type. The posters are: constellation; galaxies; nebula; planets; solar system; sunspots; and the sun. The remaining files are articles from The...

A Beginner's Guide to Cosmology

This resource gives a general introduction to cosmology; the branch of science that studies the Universe and attempts to explain how it came...

A Beginner's Guide to the Universe

This resource provides a general introduction to the Universe starting with the solar system and ending with the way that galaxies are arranged in patterns, the large scale structure of the Universe. The presentation is light on facts, however it aims to introduce general concepts and give a sense of scale to the...

Life and Death of Stars

Starting with the Sun, this resource gives a general introduction through the idea of stars being born, growing old and ending their days in...

Nuffield Physics Activities for GCSE

This pack of Nuffield Physics activity sheets was designed to match the National Curriculum Science: Physics at Key stage Four from 1996. The ideas were drawn from materials produced by various Nuffield projects over the previous ten years. The pack includes student sheets for 97 different activities.

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Beryllium

In the build-up to the Christmas Lectures in 2012, the Royal Institution published a new video for every day of advent revealing the elements that really excite and inspire people. In this short film, biochemist Liz Bonnin looks to the stars for her pick from the periodic table.

The properties of beryllium...