Ensure SAPS works for you – please complete a short survey

It is important that we know a little more about you to ensure our Associates scheme delivers something useful, and so that we can report on our impact. We therefore ask you to complete a short (5 mins) survey for us. To say ‘thanks’ we will enter you into a free prize draw to win a £299 Dinolite USB microscope.

We want to hear your views on curriculum development

Want to make your voice heard on changes to the curriculum and qualifications? The science National Curriculum (for England and Wales) is currently under review and A levels will be next. The SAPS team talk meet regularly with Awarding Bodies and with the Society of Biology, whose members are in the thick of curriculum discussions. We would like to better represent the views and experiences of biology teachers and technicians in our discussions. Interested in contributing somehow? Just email the SAPS Director Ginny Page before you head off on holiday saying you’re interested, and she’ll send you more information.

Need some funds to turn a great idea into a teaching resource?

Do you have great ideas for teaching plant science in the classroom? Would you like a grant to create a resource for the SAPS website? If you’ve got an idea that, with a little money to pay for time or materials, we could make available on the SAPS website, we’d like to hear from you. Our SAPS Associates Grants can support teachers and technicians to develop lively new resources on their chosen area of plant science, relevant to UK secondary and post-16 curricula. We’re particularly keen to see new resources on the subject of tropisms, medicines and plants, periodicity, hormones, and plants and the effects of pollutants. For more information contact the SAPS team.

Resources for the new GCSEs

If you’re getting ready to teach the new GCSE specifications, we’ve done our best to make the plant science parts easier.  We’ve put together lists of our resources that are suitable for the different GCSE specifications, available here: http://www.saps.org.uk/specifications


New Resource – Dandelions and Gravitropism

And here’s a new SAPS resource for all of you who’ll be teaching gravitropism in September with the new GCSEs specification. All you need is a dandelion! http://bit.ly/phNECy


New Resource – Wonderful videos on pollen and pollination

These two videos, from the TED series of online lectures, show pollen and pollination as you’ve never seen it before. In a beautiful slow-motion film, Louie Schwartzberg shows the intricate relationship between plants and their pollinators. Ideal for the end of term: http://bit.ly/nYzsdp  Meanwhile, Jonathan Drori talks about how every plant produces a unique type of pollen grain, and how this can be used in forensics  http://bit.ly/q4xjmo

This is the last SAPS Associates newsletter for the summer. Have a great holiday and we look forward to being back in touch with you next term.