Information for schools and young people

We work with a number of partners to deliver a suite of activities and resources that can be used to enrich lessons, demonstrate real-life science and enthuse young people about the science we support.

Information for schools

Curriculum enrichment and enhancement

Through RCUK we support a number of activities to help schools and teachers inspire students:

Nuffield bursaries - Students can apply for funds to work with a scientist in their place of work during the summer holidays, to get real-life experience of science careers.
Teacher CPD - This CPD programme is designed to help secondary school teachers deliver some of the more challenging aspects of the curriculum.
Schoolscience - This website hosts all of the research councils online resources which are freely available for classroom use.

In addition to these schemes, many of our researchers are often involved with local National Science & Engineering Week activities, or are STEM Ambassadors - contact your local university or research centre, or the STEM points .

Curriculum relevant resources

Planet Earth magazine and science news website Planet Earth Online cover a variety of different areas of environmental science that can be incorporated into your science, geography and Personal, Social, Health & Economic education lessons.

Resources for GCSE students that demonstrate the breadth of science our researchers work in, with advice on A-level selection for those wishing to pursue scientific careers.

In collaboration with the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) we have produced two exhibitions covering biodiversity and evolution . These have toured the country and have websites with additional free information.

Our research centres provide many more resources including award-winning GCSE-linked online activities, posters and information packs, school visits and work experience.

Careers information

We have information on our website about the different careers that people can do within NERC and in the environmental science sector. Some of our centres also have work experience vacancies for people to get a better understanding of what a job is really like and what it involves:

Information for teachers

We are working with the National Science Learning Centre to develop continuing professional development (CPD) courses to help you bring relevant and interesting research into the classroom.

Primary school teachers

We have created four animations for you to use to introduce new subjects to your students:

We have worked with Funkids Radio to produce a series of 15 short radio clips about the oceans and the life within them. These are free to download from iTunes and we have some additional written information about the oceans too:

Feedback

What resources are useful to you? What sorts of things would you like us to produce? Please get in touch to give us your feedback.

Poppy Leeder
Tel: 01793 411974
Mob: 07917 456694

Information for young people

Getting involved in the science

It can be far more interesting to take part in the science than just hear about it - to enable this we support activities allowing the public to get involved in collecting data, samples and information which is then used by scientists to understand what is going on. Two activities we have run that may be of interest are BioBlitz and Conker Tree Science .

If taking part in getting research results is not of interest then debating existing science issues might be. There are a number of debating schemes and competitions designed to enable young people to take part debating current science issues.

Meeting the scientists

Our scientists are often involved in working with science and discovery centres and museums to develop their displays and activities. They also take part in debates, discussions and events in different places so that you can meet them and discuss the science in person. Good examples of this include the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition . Sometimes scientists can visit schools to talk in class about a particular subject, or might attend a café scientifique to outline the work they do and answer questions about it.

Finding out more about the science

We use a number of different ways, as well as scientists themselves to communicate our science. This might be through a video, or animation, or a podcast of a scientist talking about their daily work. We have a presence in various social media to allow people to follow the work we do:

Information for schools and young people