The Challenge Pack aims to give students, aged 11-16, and their teachers/educators support to create a science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) project that they can enter into the National Science + Engineering Competition.
The Challenge Pack aims to give students, aged 11-16, and their teachers/educators support to create a science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) project that they can enter into the National Science + Engineering Competition.
Through creating a project, young people can explore the real nature of STEM and work on specific topics just like professional scientists and engineers. The Challenge Pack aims to help young people embark on a project, giving them ideas to get started and to take their project forward. The Pack has been developed with leading STEM educationalists and is supported by a range of high profile scientists and engineers.
The Challenge Pack is aimed at 11-16 year olds (Key Stage 3 & 4 in England & Wales) and provides suggestions for teaching materials for this audience. However, teachers and educators can use this Pack as a basis for work with younger or older students as well.
Welcome from Professor Brian Cox OBE
"Lots of people think you have to be some kind of genius like Einstein to undertake a science or engineering project, but that’s simply not true.
All you need to be is interested — the basic ideas behind projects such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the Curiosity mission to Mars are not difficult to understand. Your students can get involved by making their own project on a topic that is of interest to them.
And there are lots of reasons to get involved. In the UK, the science industry drives our economy and we don’t have enough scientists or engineers to fill all the available vacancies. School project work is a fantastic way of giving young people experience of what scientists and engineers do on a daily basis and can open the door to a rewarding career in science and engineering.
I would encourage students and teachers to use this Challenge Pack to create a project and see where it takes them. It could take your students to the Finals of the National Science + Engineering Competition or even a career in science and engineering!"
How to use the Challenge Pack
The Challenge Pack features ten individual subject sheets that can be used together with the ‘Guide to project work’. Each sheet provides one side of support for teachers, with resource ideas for introducing the subject to students, and one side of ideas for students to help them come up with a concept for their project.
You can either download the whole Challenge Pack here or see below for individual subject sheets.
The 10 downloadable subject sheets are available here in the following areas:
Together with the CREST Awards scheme, we have designed two supporting Guides that we suggest are used together with the Challenge Sheets and provide a guide to project work.
