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:


England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

Wales


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Hydrology - Gold pack

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/).

Teacher guide

Teacher guide Information inundation Flooding In the UK, floods are managed by catchment, and a local area may contain a number of catchments. In recent years flood management strategies in many catchments are placing an increasing responsibility on at-risk communities themselves, in terms of understanding the risks and taking protective action. As a result, communication about flood risk is more and more important in terms of developing flood resilience. However, a lot of research suggests that current communication approaches about flood risk have not resulted in the intended increase in awareness, or behavioural change. In this project, students will consider and evaluate different flood risk communication approaches and, based on their analysis, develop their own flood management communications plan for their local catchment. Prompts • Too much information can lead to a communication overload. Encourage your students to be selective in what their key messages are. • Should the response to a flood always be the same? How does the recommended behaviour vary? Encourage students to research the recommended behaviours specific to the likely risks in their catchment and to base their communication strategy on those. • Is your catchment low or high risk? How will that affect your messaging? How do the catchments either side of yours affect what happens in your local area? • How will you evaluate your campaign? Encourage your students to think about how they will measure if their campaign is successful. Students should think about this early on in the planning process. 18

Student brief Information inundation Flooding (Geography, flooding, climate change, environment) Have you ever wondered what to do if there is a flood? Imagine you work for the local council. Your area is at high flood risk. You have been asked to design a communications campaign to inform local residents about how to react if there is a flood, keeping safe in a flood, and how to protect their home from floods. Getting started Start by researching the information you might like to include in your campaign, e.g. what to do and what not to do in a flood, how to get help and how to protect your home. Next, you will need to think about how to deliver your message. Remember to think about: • What’s the goal of the campaign? • Who is your target audience? Are certain demographics more likely to be uninformed about flooding and how to stay safe? • Messaging, tone and design. How will you present your ideas so that your audience takes notice? • How are you going to reach your audience? What media will you use so that people see your campaign? Useful resources • UKCEH Flood and drought impacts https://www.ceh.ac.uk/our-science/sciencechallenges/flood-and-drought-impacts • Flooding Communications Toolkit (Public Health England) https://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/sites/defaul t/files/Flooding%20- %20Communications%20Toolkit%20FINAL.pdf • How to communicate during flood emergencies https://www.floodmanagement.info/how-tocommunicate-during-flood-emergencies/ • How to plan ahead for flooding https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/planahead-for-flooding • What to do in a flood https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/what-todo-in-a-flood • How to recover after a flood https://check-forflooding.service.gov.uk/recovering-after-a-flood Things to think about • What type of flooding is your catchment at risk of? Is it at high risk or low risk? How might these factors affect your approach? Make sure you are only including information that is relevant to your audience. • What content will you include/exclude? You might like to rank the information you find in order of importance. • How will you test out your campaign to know if it would be effective? Think about doing a before and after survey or interview with a group of people to see if your campaign works. 19

Bronze level

Ten hour projects recommended for ages 11+. Find out more about this level and how to gain a CREST Award on the Bronze Awards page.


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Bronze

Silver level

Thirty hour projects recommended for ages 14+. Find out more about this level and how to gain a CREST Award on the Silver Award page.


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Silver

Gold level

Seventy hour projects recommended for ages 16+. Find out more about this level and how to gain a CREST Award on the Gold Awards page


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Gold

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