Schools and teachers: Key Stage 3
Our Key Stage 3 education service will continue during the Museum’s temporary closure as a targeted programme of outreach activities, along with bookable sessions at the Botanic Garden.
Secondary school teachers who would like to book an outreach or Botanic Garden session please contact education@oum.ox.ac.uk.
The following sessions offer students the opportunity to handle Museum specimens and take part in a range of object-based activities. Sessions are designed for groups of up to 30 students and typically last one hour.
Ideas and Evidence
How do scientists use evidence to explore the unknown? Students handle a variety of types of fossil evidence and use a range of skills to find out how scientists build up an accurate idea of the prehistoric world and how this idea changes as new evidence is discovered.
The Colour of Nature
Why are there so many colours in the natural world? This practical workshop links Key Stage 3 Biology and Physics and encourages students to consider what colour is, the different ways colour is produced and how colour is an adaptation in the natural world.
Online resources: in the learning zone
- The living animal
Discover the life processes of humans and other animals in the 'Living animal'. Designed to complement SC2: Section 2. Humans as organisms. - Classifying animals
'Animal I.D.' provides an introduction to animal classification with a series of sorting games. Designed to complement SC2: Section 4. Variation, classification and inheritance. - Extinct and endangered animals
Students can use these resources for their own research and explore how animals become extinct and endangered. Designed to complement SC2: Section 5. Living things in their environment. - The chemistry of minerals
'What is a mineral?' introduces students to the concepts and chemistry behind these spectacular crystals. Designed to complement SC3: Section 1. Grouping and classifying materials. - The rock cycle
'Rocky' escorts you around the rock cycle, introduces the three rock types and tests students with fun games. Designed to complement SC3: Section 2. Changing materials. - Browse the learning zone
The learning zone provides a range of different of articles for younger students on science topics linked to the national curriculum.
Online resources: image banks
- Grouping animals
Challenges students to classify animals; can they identify birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates? - The human skeleton
Can students identify the bones of the human body? This series of photographs provides a useful resource in the classroom. - Rock types
A photographic introduction to igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks; sort them and discuss the processes that form each type of rock.
The image banks are PDF format and are all 800kB or less in size.
To read these files you will need to download Adobe Reader
Enquiries regarding education services should be sent to: education@oum.ox.ac.uk
