Passport

This resource, provided by the Association for Science Education (ASE) and part of the SYCD Science Year Who am I? collection, is a template for successful bridging projects.It is designed as transition activity for students moving from primary to secondary school.

By collecting visas for skills and investigations to carry forward with them, students build a reassuring link for themselves between their schools. A choice of investigations and structured follow-up helps you plan the elusive smoother transition. Passport could also be used as a stand alone activity to help students focus on their investigative skills.

The pdf file contains an A5 twelve page student booklet. The six pages should be printed back to back. An additional sheet of visa stamps can be printed onto sticky labels or cut and pasted by students into their Passport.

Sections of the Passport provide opportunities to introduce a variety of science concepts:

• Personal data - a record of personal features, e.g. height and eye colour, gives an opportunity to introduce the concept of variation.
• Good health - students record their vaccinations as they would in a normal passport. This could be linked to work on micro-organisms.
• About yourself - students think about the relevance of science to their everyday lives. They think about different jobs that friends and family do and begin to appreciate where the science fits in.
• My scientific skills - teachers choose their own criteria for awarding 'Visas' to students as rewards for progress.
• Practical visas - students record their skills so they can see their progression as they learn to use different equipment with a higher degree of accuracy.
• Apparatus visa - students tick off pieces of apparatus as they become competent with them across the transition.
• Vocabulary visa - students keep a record of scientific terms across the transition.
• Investigations visa - a choice of three investigations to begin at primary and complete at secondary school. These pages are left blank for students to record their investigations.
• Where you have been - students record web sites they use for research during Year Six. They record science visits with an official stamp from the science centre.

Three suggested investigation topics have been chosen for their clear continuity in content across the transition.
• Environment: Looking at habitats and adaptations. This activity is fun for the summer term. The amount of fieldwork required is flexible and options for different habitats mean that school geography is not a barrier. Communication, group work and literacy are highlighted at different points in the activity.
• Solutions: Uses easily resourced and much-loved jelly dissolving to build investigative practical skills, including predictions, analysis and evaluation.
• Golden ratio: Focusing on their faces, students collect variation data that draws them into the world of the Ancient Greek 'Golden ratio'. Numeracy is highlighted by calculations of simple ratios.

• URL: http://stem.org.uk/rx9t