British Science Week - 8th-17th March 2024

March 8th-17th marks the 2024 edition of British Science Week. For ten days, people of all ages will be taking part in engaging events and activities coordinated by the British Science Association to celebrate science, technology, engineering and math. We've compiled some resources and cool Purple Mash activities for you to check out!

Throughout British Science Week, teachers, STEM professionals, science communicators and the general public alike are provided a platform to produce and participate in events celebrating STEM.

Activities

This year’s theme is ‘Time’. We've put together a free resource pack to help promote participation in British Science Week. Enjoy access to a range of activities, including telling the time using only the power of the sun, inventing a gadget for the future, exploring how fossilisation occurs over time, and more!

The British Science Association have also produced a range of Activity packs which have been created in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). These contain lots of activities around all sorts of ‘connection’ including eco-friendly behaviours, animals, and space. These can be used at home or in the classroom, allowing children to participate in the fun at any time. They are also running their poster competition again this year, with a range of fantastic prizes, the poster should be on the theme of Time and schools can submit entries up to 28th March 2024.

Purple Mash resources

Purple Mash has a wealth of resources to support you in school to celebrate British Science Week, from Mashcams to writing frames, we have a range of resources that you can use during the week. Here we have collated a few of our favourites. If you're not currently a subscriber, you can try Purple Mash free for 14 days.

Time

You could start by having children engage with the theme of Time by coding their own chiming timer in our Tick tock clock challenge.

You can also take a look at our ‘Evolution of Humans’ template, exploring the early stages of humanity, and describing how our ancestor lived throughout different eras of time. Jumping to the modern day, use this template to discuss the different stages of a human lifetime and explore how we grow and change.

If we look at the plants with which we share the world, children can use 2animate to create an animation of plants growing or to show a the passage of time through it's life cycle. They can use our Growing Plants template to describe what happens as a plant grows and take our Plants Labelling quiz labelling the parts of the plant and things that help it to grow.

Whatever you choose to do for British Science week we would love to see you work on our Twitter/X or Facebook pages using the hashtag #BSW24. Have fun!