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/).

OVER TO YOU Over to You

OVER TO YOU Over to You Organiser’s Card About the activity OVER TO YOU This activity is designed to get children thinking about adhesives and using their creativity. The children have been given two news articles about the scientific inspiration and the principles behind sticky tape and glue. Can they think of good uses for these sticky things? This is designed to be a creative, ideas generating activity that will stretch some children’s imaginations and their ability to think scientifically and ‘outside the box’. Through this activity you will support your group to: • Read stories of genuine scientific research. • Recognise that new materials and products may be the result of chance experimentation. • Understand how scientists may spend many years researching and developing their ideas into a final product. • Help to find uses for innovative and unusual inventions. Kit list • Access to the internet and/or books What to do 1. Read the ACTIVITY CARD to familiarise yourself with the activity. 2. Set the scene by discussing the news articles with the children. 3. Help the children to identify what the problem is. 4. Encourage children to talk together to develop their own ideas. 5. Encourage children who may want to do extra research via the internet etc. 6. Encourage children to make their own records. This might include creating a poster to advertise their ideas and to persuade people to buy them.

Things to think about In this activity, there are no right or wrong answers. Children should be encouraged to think creatively and develop their own unusual or innovative ideas. At the end of the activity, you may like to tell the children that the ‘glue that would not set’ was used to make the Post-it note. Ten years after Spencer Silver invented his unusual glue, Post-it notes were being sold all over the world. The stories in the ‘Extra things to do’ section on ACTIVITY CARD may leave the children guessing but they probably worked out that: George de Mestral’s sticky fastener is the material we all know and love – Velcro. Walter Diemer’s sticky pink recipe is a children’s favourite – bubble gum. Keywords • Glue • Adhesives • Invention • Imagination. British Science Association Registered Charity No. 212479 and SC039236