To mark the official UK-wide launch of the Big Lottery funded OPAL project this year, the OPAL team (Open Air Laboratories) have revised and updated their national surveys for people to use in all corners of the UK. To view and download the new surveys right now visit www.opalexplorenature.org/surveys
People of all ages can now contribute to scientific research in their local area on everything from invasive species to environmental quality.
The programme, led by Imperial College London, has been inspiring communities in England to discover, enjoy and protect their local environment since 2007. Last year the scheme started work with Scottish school pupils, teachers, community groups, colleges and universities. The project and its partners have now engaged with more than 850,000 people submitting more than 50,000 records about their local environments.
OPAL Director Dr David Slawson said: “We are very pleased to be able to roll out OPAL in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Not only are people learning more about their environment, but this valuable data is helping scientists learn a great deal about biodiversity in our country, especially in areas they would never normally be able to study, such as back gardens. We hope many more people will join in, explore nature and contribute to our knowledge of the environment across the whole of the UK.”
A number of local events are being held to mark OPAL’s expansion across the UK, where people have been getting hands-on with nature and getting a taste of the surveys. People can find out about other OPAL events in their area at http://www.opalexplorenature.org/OPALActivities
Register today for the Bank of Scotland £5 design challenge, a unique art and design competition for budding designers aged 4-14.
The Bank of Scotland £5 design challenge celebrates Bank of Scotland’s partnership with BBC Children in Need. The challenge asks pupils to design a banknote that depicts “What BBC Children in Need means to you”.
The first prize winner will see their design produced as a limited edition £5 Bank of Scotland banknote.
Exclusive access to resources
Schools that register will get exclusive access to downloadable classroom resources including; Teacher Notes, an introductory PowerPoint taking you through how to run the challenge, a classroom poster and competition entry leaflet. The resources have been developed to make the delivery of this competition fun and simple in the lead up to the end of term.
The first 200 schools to register will receive a printed pack including 130 competition leaflets and a poster for your school.
Benefits include
Curriculum links to Art and Design,Health and Wellbeing and Literacy
Easy to use and adaptable resources that can be used in class for a quick fun activity or set as a homework task.
In addition to seeing their design produced as a limited edition £5 Bank of Scotland banknote the winner will also receive:
visit to De La Rue, Basingstoke, for the winning pupil (with a parent or guardian) to meet the banknote designer and learn how banknotes are prepared for production
A framed digital print of the banknote for the winning pupil
A framed digital print banknote for their school
A visit from Pudsey Bear for your school
Two lucky age group category winners will receive great prizes too.
Don’t miss out, register now to give your pupils the chance to win a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a real banknote featuring their very own design
Following sell-out tours of the UK, Fantastic Plastics is returning to Glasgow and Edinburgh! To book places for your students, email ChemNet@rsc.org
Dates and Location:
Wed 2nd Sept 2015, 10.30-11.30am or 1.30-2.30pm, Edinburgh Napier University.
Thur 3rd Sept 2015, 10.30-11.30am or 1.30-2.30pm, Glasgow.
Age:
14-16 years, National 4/5 students
Content:
What’s the link between false legs and chewing gum, or between nappies and high tech TVs? Fantastic Plastic will take you on a walk through the future where plastic will change your world – and for the better! The inspirational Fantastic Plastic lectures cover the properties of addition and condensation polymers, their wide-ranging applications and innovative polymeric novel materials.
Registration:
Places are free but must be booked in advance. To register please email ChemNet@rsc.org stating; the name of your school, the number of students and the date and time of the lecture you wish to attend. Registration closes 7 days before the event.
Transport costs:
To help meet transport costs, the Royal Society of Chemistry are offering to make a contribution of up to £100 for every 50 students booked. Please contact us for details by emailing katy.mould@glasgowsciencecentre.org
A Future in Chemistry is a careers site from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
When it comes to job prospects students aged between 11 and 19 have a lot of decisions to make; subject choices, work experience, the best university for their plans. There’s a good deal to think about – especially when a career in a chemistry related area is the ultimate goal.
This site has been created to give young people, parents and teachers what they need to help them make informed choices and feel confident about their future.
For further information: http://rsc.li/1JqDHMl
Our 12th NQ cross-authority writing group event took place on the 18th May in Stirling. Around 60 secondary colleagues attended with the focus being on the transition from Higher to Advanced Higher. This included supporting the transition from traditional Higher to CfE Advanced Higher. New resources have been developed for biology, chemistry, physics and environmental science and are now available on our Glow science site. Details on the resources developed and plans for future events are listed below.
In addition, we’d like to express our thanks to all those who have uploaded sciences resources they have developed. We now have 3000+ resources on the Glow sciences site and, at the start of the year have on average 1000 teachers accessing the site each month making it one of the most successful communities on the new Glow platform. Thanks to everyone for helping to build such a vibrant and active community. Without a doubt, learners across Scotland will benefit hugely from this.
In the next few weeks the new Glow video channel will be launched as well as the new Yammer app which will enhance the functionality of the Glow newsfeed. We’ll bring you news of these at the start of next session.
Every teacher in Scotland should have access to Glow including those in the independent sector. If you don’t have a password then please speak to the Glow coordinator in your school in the first instance or your Glow key contact in your authority.
At the most recent event in May participants were developing resources and working on the following areas:
Biology
Experimental guide for outcome 1
Guide for starting the course with learners
Practical guides for all units
I can statements for Organisms and Evolution
Focus for upcoming events
Support for projects in rural communities
Opportunity to work with partner agencies
Higher assignments
Chemistry
Mapping knowledge and understanding from any Chemistry Higher
Research unit resources – past paper questions linking to knowledge and understanding and skills
Synthesis Unit resources
Candidate project checklist
Focus for upcoming events
Higher assignment feedback
Open-ended questions
Environmental Science
Working on Forestry Commission materials
Added Value Unit – data handling
Focus for upcoming events
Higher assignment feedback
Opportunity to work with partner agencies
Continue populating resource guide for N4 /5 / Higher
Physics
Learner friendly outcome statements and success criteria
Learner resources for knowledge based units
Teacher support notes for astrophysics
Support guide for learners moving from traditional Higher to CfE Advanced Higher
SCHOLAR provides access to high quality learning and teaching materials on the web. The content is written by teachers for teachers strictly aligned with the new SQA CfE curriculum. Subject authors and the SCHOLAR educational development team create effective e-learning content to support individual and classroom learning. The materials are highly interactive with engaging interactivities, simulations, graphics, practice and formative assessments. Audio resources have also been integrated into some courses to help provide a diverse range of media suitable for all types of learner.
End of topic and unit tests provide valuable feedback for the learners. For teachers, we provide detailed feedback on their students’ results for the end of topic and unit tests. This allows teachers to identify individual strengths and weaknesses to aid attainment.
Recently, the SCHOLAR team has been hard at work developing the CfE Higher and CfE Advanced Higher courses – including STEM. The available STEM subjects are as follows:
Subject
CfE Higher
CfE Advanced Higher
Biology
Complete
Unit 1 available – remainder to follow throughout 2015
Chemistry
Complete
Unit 1 available – remainder to follow throughout 2015
Computing Science
Complete
Unit 1 available – remainder to follow throughout 2015
Human Biology
Complete
Not applicable
Mathematics*
Complete
Unit 1 available – remainder to follow throughout 2015
Physics
Complete
Unit 1 available – remainder to follow throughout 2015
*Additionally, SCHOLAR provides complete CfE National 5 materials in Mathematics
Navigation through the online materials is straightforward and easy to learn and is the same for all the STEM subjects. The PDFs of the content are available for download by teachers as Study Guides and corresponding Teacher Notes.
Every secondary school in Scotland has access to SCHOLAR – contact the SCHOLAR coordinator in your school if you have not received your account details. Access is given to teachers and pupils (S4-S6) who are studying a SCHOLAR subject.
Keep up to date with our developments and learn more about our available materials by visiting our website www.scholar.hw.ac.uk .
Colleagues in Edinburgh and other authorities using Microsoft SharePoint sometimes have issues accessing GLOW. Below is some advice from the Digital Learning and Teaching team at Scottish Government. User names and passwords are a school/ authority issue, sorry but we can’t help there.
In some local authority areas in Scotland individuals may have access to more than one Microsoft O365 platform. Everyone in Scotland has Glow but there may also be a Microsoft O365 platform in use that has been provided locally. In these cases, it is still possible for you to use more than one Microsoft O365 platform should you wish i.e. use Glow as well as the local authority Microsoft O365 platform, however there are some points you should be aware of. If you want to be in both platforms at the one time: You must use separate browsers e.g. Internet Explorer for the local platform, Google Chrome for Glow (or any other browser available). This is because when you are logged in to Microsoft O365, the browser will use a cookie to ensure you stay logged in, because of this you cannot be logged in twice using the same browser to different platforms. If you only have access to one browser: If your machine is restricted to one browser then you must fully log out of one platform before you log in to another. When logging out of Glow:
Go to the Launchpad (RM Unify) and in the top right of the screen, next to your name, click on the downward arrow and choose sign out.
You will then be updated as you are logged out of all services you are currently using.
Close your browser completely then open again for a new session.
There will be a different process to log out of your own local authority platform but this would be required if moving to use Glow from the same browser. The above situation is not caused by either of the platforms in use in particular but rather is an expected behaviour of being authenticated in to a cloud based service being used for more than one purpose.
The next David Elder Lecture on The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence to be delivered on 10th June2015 at the Glasgow Science Centre’s IMAX by Prof Tim O’Brien of BBC Stargazing Live fame and a Director of the Jodrell Bank Radio-Telescope Observatory.
This will be an exciting visual lecture and would be suitable to inspire secondary students in S4 – S6.
Ticketing for this free event is on-line or via telephone for group bookings – details on poster.
Education Scotland seeks to appoint Development Officers to work in partnership with colleagues from across the education system, Scottish Government and other national organisations to develop, promote and support effective and innovative approaches within their specialist areas.
Working in teams led by Senior Education Officers, we are seeking Development Officers in the following areas:
Expressive arts
Health and wellbeing
Literacy and English
Science
Technologies
Candidates should possess a relevant degree in teaching and be registered with the GTCS. You should also have excellent knowledge of Curriculum for Excellence and be able to contribute to its continued development and implementation. Demonstrable experience in the relevant discipline is required with excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
The Development Officer posts are being offered on a 23 month secondment basis and can be based out of any of the Education Scotland offices subject to local availability.
Closing date for applications: Midnight, 7 June 2015
Completed applications should be submitted by email to edshr@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk
Education Scotland is committed to Equal Opportunities.
RHS boldly goes where none have gone before, turning half a million UK children into space biologists.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Campaign for School Gardening has partnered with the UK Space Agency to embark on an innovative educational project, to be launched at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (19 – 23 May 2015). The project, Rocket Science, will give around half a million children the chance to learn how investment in human space exploration contributes to our knowledge of life on Earth, using the invaluable expertise of the European Space Agency (ESA) and RHS Science team.
Rocket Science will involve 2kg of rocket seeds being sent to the International Space Station as part of British ESA astronaut Tim Peake’s six-month Principia mission. After several months on board, orbiting the planet at 17,000mph, the seeds will be returned to Earth and sent to thousands of UK schools, alongside a batch of seeds that have stayed on Earth. Pupils will grow and compare the seeds as they embark on a voyage of discovery to see whether we can sustain human life in space through the production of our own food. The results of the nationwide citizen science experiment will then be analysed to discover whether space travel has impacted on the growth of the seeds.
British ESA astronaut Tim Peake said “It’s a huge privilege to be the first British ESA astronaut flying to the International Space Station. During my six-month tour, I’ll be conducting a number of experiments on the International Space Station. I hope that Rocket Science will inspire the next generation to think scientifically, and to consider the fulfilling careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths).”
Minister for Universities and Science Jo Johnson added: “Britain’s space industry is going from strength to strength, and for this to continue it’s right we inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. ‘Rocket Science’ is doing just that by giving thousands of schoolchildren the opportunity to play a part in Tim’s mission to the International Space Station, while learning new skills in a fun and unique way.”
To introduce the project, an inspiring exhibition will be on show in the Discovery Zone at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, complete with a real-life Mars Rover and a team of ESA’s leading scientists on hand to talk about their work in this field. Set across four zones, interactive displays will take the visitor through the past, present and future of plants in space, discovering the important role scientists play in helping plants to thrive in inhospitable conditions, how space exploration helps solve problems on Earth and even the plants astronauts need to survive long-term missions.
Claire Custance, RHS Skills Development Manager – Education & Learning, said: “Rocket Science is a really exciting project for us, and a unique chance to get even more schools engaging with horticulture and science. Working with a partner like the UK Space Agency brings a fresh and exciting perspective on horticulture in the National Curriculum. We look forward to discovering the results of the nationwide experiment.”
For more information on how you can get your school involved with astronaut Tim Peake’s mission to the International Space Station, visit the dedicated website.
