Steps into Science has provided three packs of STEM resources for primary school children: 4 – 7 years, 7 – 9 years and 9 – 11 years. Being a scientist opens up a wide range of careers that many children will not be aware of. The Royal Society of Chemistry has developed these resources, but they also have a dedicated website for educational users where many more educational resources can be found.
“Our education website brings together all our online support for chemistry teaching in one place. That’s the place to go for:
- thousands of free teaching resources – featuring everything from practical experiments and simulations to tutorials, quizzes, games and videos
- professional development support for teachers – including online courses…”
“Being a scientist isn’t just doing experiments in a lab, there are many different careers a scientist can have. We have developed our ‘scientific careers and skills’ resources to enable teachers to introduce primary learners to a range of scientific careers and allow them to associate the skills they have with those needed to be a scientist.” https://edu.rsc.org/primary-science/stem-careers-and-skills-activities/4016748.article
There are three types of resources in each pack:
- Career fact files– these give learners information about different careers linked to curriculum topics and the skills needed for each job. There are two versions of this resource, one has less text and will be suitable for use with learners who need support with language.
- Skills card sort– a game that learners can play to discuss and agree on the most important skills for different jobs.
- Career poster– a set of two posters you can use to help learners visualise themselves in a range of scientific careers.
The Steps into Science resources are linked to the National Curriculum.
