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

crestaward

Views

6 years ago

Flag

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/).

Camouflaged Creatures

Camouflaged Creatures Activity Card To: You From: Corina Subject: Camouflaged creatures Dear Investigators, Help! How do creatures camouflage themselves? I know that clever creatures use camouflage to save themselves from danger. They are hard to see even though they are not hiding underneath anything – just like Wally in the Where’s Wally books! But what I want to know is how do they do it? Can you help me? Confused Corina Your challenge Help Corina to find out how different creatures are camouflaged by playing the Clever Camouflage Game. Discuss You need a brown or grey butterfly shape and a piece of white string so that you can start exploring your ideas. Try putting each of them in different places. Where are they difficult to see? Why do you think that is? Where can they be seen very easily? Why do you think that is? Can you do other things to help to camouflage them?

Getting started Some animals, such as snakes, use patterns to hide. Others, like stick insects, use their shape to try to stay hidden. There are other ways of camouflaging as well. What if you change the colour of things? What about their shape? Can you see a pattern that might help? Are some places better than others? Let’s play the camouflage game: You have things to hide but you are not allowed to cover them up. You don’t have very much time. Where will it be best to hide them? Will anyone be able to find them? Test your ideas What were the best camouflage patterns? You could record your results in a table like this one: How well hidden was this pattern? Stripes No pattern Spots Share your ideas You could take photographs to send to Corina. You could make a poster showing creatures using different types of camouflage. Extra things to do Find out more about creatures that use camouflage and why. Find out why some female animals are better camouflaged than males. British Science Association Registered Charity No. 212479 and SC039236