To celebrate its 10th year, the Swansea University Science for Schools Scheme (S4) is making all its science content open access to teachers and learners in Wales and around the world.
S4 helps widen access to the sciences and, over the last decade, has built up an archive of hundreds of hands-on experiments, workshops, teacher notes, activities, videos and worksheets aligned with Wales’ science curriculum.
From Wednesday 3 May, teachers and learners will be able to access these resources for free by signing up for the S4 Online Portal.
Professor Mary Gagen, Academic leader of the S4 project, said: “Because we developed our content in collaboration with our partner schools and participants, we feel it’s only appropriate for us to support the STEM curriculum in Wales.
“We’re really excited to be able to share our back catalogue and hope those interested in delivering hands-on science enrichment activities to widen access to STEM enjoy using our materials.”
An exclusive launch day webinar on Wednesday 3 May, at 3:45 pm, will give educators an insight into how to use the platform, which includes resources from S4’s involvement in the pan-Wales Trio Sci Cymru programme, funded by the European Social Fund and the Welsh Government.
Over the last three years through the programme, S4 has invited more than 650 pupils from backgrounds with traditionally low participation in higher education to visit a dedicated outreach space for curiosity-driven and research-led workshops, adapting them for online use during the pandemic.
Also available through the portal will be:
Links to Wildlife Biologist Lizzie Daly’s Earth Live Lessons, covering earth and conservation topics such as coral reef ecology and whale shark biology.
Worksheets and activities for A-level students to complete as they tune in to Swansea University’s podcast series Exploring Global Problems.
Access to resources for teaching S4’s tremendous workshop collection, such as Space Spectacular, helping pupils explore ‘What happens to your body in Space?’ and ‘What’s in the night sky?’
Rachel Tudor, S4’s Lead Outreach Tutor, said: “We’ve all got our favourite activities, our particle physics hands-on activities which use slime are always very popular with participants, if not with teachers and parents!
“There’s our luminol experiment, where we explore bioluminescence and watch the whole lab light up in blue and also bumper books of at-home science experiments and science boxes which we developed during the pandemic school closures.
“We’re delighted to be able to share these resources for all, and we hope they’re used to share science with more participants!”
Register for S4’s launch event webinar.
Learn more about S4 here.
Follow S4 on Facebook and Twitter.
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