Free Science CPD for Primary Teachers

Tomorrow I will be working with teachers close to Croda's site in Cowick Hall, near Goole. We will take a look at our latest resource for primary teachers, available to all on the CIEC website.

This resource, Science of Healthy Skin, is based upon processes used in industry to research, develop and produce ingredients with a wide variety of applications such as home care, personal products and health care. Children work as scientists through exciting activities organised into three themes:

• the extraction of lanolin from wool grease,
• the development of a bubble bath recipe,

·         changing the form of an ingredient to make it suitable for use in sunscreens and testing the effectiveness of sunscreen products

 The website http://www.ciec.org/healthyskin/ is used to introduce each storyline and the children interact with the web pages throughout their investigations. The website has been specially designed to teach 9-11 year olds about a range of products to clean and protect the skin. Through online and classroom activities, children have the opportunity to develop and implement creative ideas and innovative solutions to scientific and industrial problems, based on what happens in real companies.

If you are interested in these activities, and you live in the Yorkshire region, I will be carrying out a similar session on 17 April, and further details can be found here.

Joelle Halliday joins the CIEC Promoting Science team

Joelle Halliday has joined CIEC team as a Primary Professional Development Leader. Joelle’s career has included teaching in primary schools in the North West followed by several years as an LEA advisory teacher with a special interest in science.

Joelle will be delivering primary courses at NSLC and developing new CIEC resources. She delivered her first course at NSLC last week entitled Enriching the Primary Curriculum using Space and Astronomy. The CIEC resource Is There Anyone Out There? formed the basis for the activities.

Joelle said the course went well with the teachers particularly enjoying the practical sessions, which included making a chocolate volcano!

OUTSTANDING achievers in Teesside’s process sector have been honoured at a major awards ceremony. Around 450 people attended the event, organised by NEPIC (North East Process Industry Cluster) and sponsored by leading names in the sector.

Subhash Chaudhary, from Fujifilm Diosynth in Billingham, walked away with the prestigious Outstanding Contribution award and we are delighted to announce that he is donating the full £2,000 prize money to the Children Challenging Industry Project here on Teesside.

 Photo: left to right –Doug Annan (Senior Vice President at Sembcorp), Subhash Chaudhary (Fujifilm Diosynth), Nicky Waller, Stan Higgins (CEO at Nepic)

CIEC activities at ASE 2013

Measuring how far a toy car has run in the Making Maths and Science Meaningful practical workshop



Once again teachers at CIEC talks were keen to get involved in the hands-on activities being shared by Gayle Pook and Michele Smale.

Practical activities during the session How schools are using ambassadors to support KS3 Practical Science

Have you seen Stargazing?

Have you seen  BBC’s Stargazing Live?  

On Tuesday  much of the programme was devoted to the Curiosity Rover exploring Mars. Those primary school teachers watching can use the resource - Is there anyone out there?, developed by CIEC Promoting Science in collaboration with ESERO-UK - in the classroom to help their pupils to emulate space exploration and if they want further help delivering the resource attend the NSLC CPD course - Enriching the primary curriculum using space and astronomy - which takes place on February 11 and 12^th at York.

The resource contains many scientific enquiry activities for primary pupils. The course comes with an Enthuse bursary of £744 and so after paying for the course fee and expenses schools should have money left to be able to buy curriculum materials to support science teaching in the primary classroom. 

In support of Brian Cox and Dara O Briain excellent contributions to Stargazing were from Lucie Green and Lewis Dartnell both having delivered inspirational talks at ESERO-UK teacher conferences in the past. We have been very impressed with the topical space and astronomy items many of which promote space as an inspirational context to enrich the teaching and learning of STEM subjects.

CIEC Promoting Science at ASE Annual Conference, 2013

Michele and Gayle on the CIEC stand

CIEC were represented at the annual ASE conference in Reading by Gayle Pook and Michele Smale – and this year there were none of the usual worries about ice and snow!

Gayle delivered a talk entitled ‘How schools are using ambassadors to support KS3 Practical Science’ and Michele hosted a practical session on ‘Making Maths and Science Meaningful’ which explored opportunities to enhance science and maths through the use of real life contexts.

As the conference fell in the school holidays this year there seemed to be more teachers than usual who were able to attend. Michele and Gayle met numerous primary teachers during the 3 day event and were able to introduce many of them to the CIEC ethos of teaching science through real life, industrial contexts. And of course they met up with many old friends!

CCI school wins Environmental Project Award in the north east

Over the last 6 years, BOC - the UK’s largest supplier of industrial gases and engineering solutions, has donated £20,000 to science projects in local schools through its sponsorship of the BOC-NEPIC Industrial and School Environmental Awards. These are presented at the NEPIC Annual Awards Dinner in January each year.

This year, a wide range of excellent environmental projects were put forward by schools across the north east of England. The entries were judged by CCI Advisory Teacher Nicky Waller and representatives from BOC. The winner has just been announced as Kader Primary School in Middlesbrough who plan to develop large areas of their school grounds into a learning environment and wildlife area in order to provide curriculum enrichment for all children.

The project was developed by the children themselves, they built a model and they presented part of their application by video. It was clear that they were committed to using the £2,000 prize money to bring the garden into being.