Teaching Climate Change

Last September, we announced that we are one of 200 British businesses that are pledging their support for the Your Life campaign, with the purpose of inspiring young people to study maths and physics as a gateway to exciting and wide-ranging careers. One of those pledges was to produce a series of downloadable materials highlighting current real-life research issues for use with the KS4 curriculum.

And now we're making it happen.

Our first downloadable materials for teachers will be about Climate Change

Teaching Climate Change

Our first set of lesson plans are on a topic that we think it is vital for young people to understand - climate change. The decade from 2000-2010 was the warmest on record, and this warming is contributing to sea level rises, loss of ice in the arctic and antarctic, and changes in weather patterns all over the globe. Climate change is something that will affect all of us over our lifetimes, so it is important that young people understand not only what we do know about the subject, but also what our limitations in understanding it are.

This is a very exciting project for us, as we're going to help high school (GCSE and A-level) teachers engage their pupils with the STEM curriculum, by showing how the lessons they're being taught relate to real scientific research happening today. For free. But to make this happen, we need a little help.

Crowdfunding science education

To fund the project we've launched our first ever crowdfunding campaign, over at indiegogo. Because we want to offer all the materials we produce at no charge, we've partnered with some awesome people so we can offer unique, related perks to say thank-you for helping us to launch this project; including a one-hour audiobook (available to download or on CD) and a campaign t-shirt. Every crowdfunding campaign needs a t-shirt.

Our new t-shirts are great. Get yours today!

Fractal flames

As well as CDs, t-shirts, postcards and greetings cards, we've partnered with Thomas Egense - a mathematician with an "evil fractal laboratory" in which he creates stunning artworks using mathematical (fractal) equations and prints them onto canvas or glass. Thomas has kindly given us permission to offer a number of his biology-themed Fractal Flames prints at a significant discount from their retail price, and will donate some of the proceeds to our campaign. Each piece is visually stunning, and a powerful reminder of the link between mathematics and nature.

These six designs are on offer through our campaign at a significant discount from their retail price.

We look forward to bringing your more news soon.