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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Brighter after a cup of tea

Investigate and explain the health benefits of tea. 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/). For more information visit our Terms and Conditions (www.crestawards.org/terms-and-conditions).

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Page 1 of 2 Everything is brighter after a cup of tea You’re going to produce a leaflet entitled: “Everything looks brighter after a cup of tea – Fact or Fiction”. It will explain all the health risks and benefits of drinking tea. You will substantiate any of your claims by investigating tannin, caffeine and flavonoids in tea. You will carry out analytical tests on tea samples and your leaflet should be able to list a number of different types and brands of tea with the findings from any tests explained. Getting Started You should start by looking at the range of teas that are available. You will need to pick a wide selection of types to test, try choosing a range of different types and brands of tea. Tannin content: You need to do some research to find out what tannin is. Find out what it does to your cup of tea – both in appearance and flavour. Find out if it has any other uses. Does it have any harmful/beneficial effects on health? Find out if any teas give information about their tannin levels on the packaging. Design a test to determine which of your tea samples contains the most tannin. When you’ve got some rough, comparative results, find out how to determine actual quantities of tannin in tea samples. You will need to investigate protein precipitation and spectroscopy. When you’re up to speed with the method you should set about determining the tannin levels in your tea samples. Caffeine content: There’s a lot of literature available about why too much caffeine is bad for us. Conduct your own research and collate your findings. Try also to find out if caffeine is beneficial in any way. Find out if any teas give information about their caffeine levels on the packaging. Pick decaffeinated as well as caffeinated teas to test. Design some tests to see if drinking caffeine can affect performance. Flavanoid and fluoride content: Tea contains flavanoid, a type of polyphenol. Find out about the health benefits of flavanoids. Find out if any teas give information about the number/amount of flavanoids the packaging. Click to edit project description Polyphenols are extracted using 70% methanol/water solvent. The content is determined by a method called ‘Folin Ciocalteu spectrophotometry against gallic acid standards’. Tea also contains fluoride. Find out the health benefits/risks of fluoride. Find out if any teas give information about the amount of fluoride on the packaging. As with flavanoids, determining the content of fluorides won’t be possible within a school/college. Again, research the methods and, if possible, contact someone in industry to demonstrate them. Remember to think about how you will communicate your results. Things to think about Work out if it’s possible to determine the caffeine levels in your tea samples. You will need to find out about High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). You could also determine the caffeine levels in a variety of coffees. Which contains more caffeine, tea or coffee? Think about the target audience for your leaflet - this should impact how it is written. Useful Resources You may need to link up with a university or someone from industry if your school/college doesn’t have the appropriate equipment.