Secondary project briefs (ages 11+)

Bronze Awards are typically completed by students aged 11+. They complete a ten-hour project which is a perfect introduction to STEM project work. Over the course of the project, teams of students design their own investigation, record their findings, and reflect on their learnings. This process gives students a taste of what it is like to be a scientist or engineer in the real-world.

Silver Awards are typically completed by students aged 14+ over thirty hours. Project work at Silver level is designed to stretch your students and enrich their STEM studies. Students direct the project, determining the project’s aim and how they will achieve it. They carry out the project, record and analyse their results and reflect on the project and their learnings. All Silver projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform.

Gold Awards are typically completed by students aged 16+ over seventy hours. Students’ projects are self-directed, longer term and immerse them in real research. At this level, we recommend students work with a mentor from their chosen STEM field of study. All Gold projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform. There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.

There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.

Find out how to build practical CREST projects into secondary science lessons using our free teacher guidance pack. Supporting this guidance are easy-to-use, free-to-download mapping workbooks, which match individual Bronze, Silver and Gold CREST Award projects with each area of the secondary science curricula for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. You can download and save your own copy of the relevant mapping workbook via the following links:

To browse the briefs, click the buttons below or scroll down.

Bronze Silver Gold Partner resources

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All SuperStar challenges

The activities in this pack have been selected from our library of CREST SuperStar challenges. Children need to complete eight challenges to achieve a CREST SuperStar Award. If you want, you can mix and match challenges from different packs, as long as children complete eight SuperStar challenges. This resource is published under an Attribution - non-commercial - no derivatives 4.0 International creative commons licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

IGATING INK

IGATING INK INVESTIGATING INK Investigating Ink Activity Card INVESTIGATING INK NEWSINVESTIGATING INK Cocker Spaniel caught up in Canine Crime Spree Earlier this week, Lady Felicity Feline received a ransom note demanding £100,000 for the safe return of Colin, her prize-winning cocker spaniel. Detectives have seized black pens from four prime suspects so that they can carry out ink investigations to find out who sent the note. “Someone had splashed a drop of water on the note and we spotted something very interesting,” Inspector Khan told our reporter. “With a bit of help we should soon have Colin back.” Your challenge The four main suspects are: Ivor Swagbag Robyn Banks Kitty Catburglar Nick Goods Help the detectives to match the ink from the ransom note to one of the suspects’ pens to find out who has Colin the Cocker Spaniel.

NVESTIGATING INK Discuss What ways could you use to tell the difference between the black pens? Drop water on black ink and watch what happens. How might this help to solve the crime? Getting started Pens write differently and the colour of the ink can vary. Perhaps you can see these differences if you look closely. If you have explored what water does to some ink, can you use what you have found out to investigate the suspects’ pens? This process is called chromatography. Test your ideas One way to test the ink is to drip water onto a sample of the ransom note. Watch what happens. Compare this with blobs of ink from the suspects’ pens. Try to gather as much different evidence as you can. Can you find out who the dog napper is? Share your ideas Why not make a wanted poster which includes all the evidence to help detectives track down the criminal you have identified? Extra things to do Is it only black pens that you can test with chromatography? Are there other things that are coloured that you can test such as jelly beans or food colouring? Are there other ways of doing chromatography? British Science Association Registered Charity No. 212479 and SC039236