Bronze Awards are typically completed by students aged 11+. They complete a ten-hour project which is a perfect introduction to STEM project work. Over the course of the project, teams of students design their own investigation, record their findings, and reflect on their learnings. This process gives students a taste of what it is like to be a scientist or engineer in the real-world.
Silver Awards are typically completed by students aged 14+ over thirty hours. Project work at Silver level is designed to stretch your students and enrich their STEM studies. Students direct the project, determining the project’s aim and how they will achieve it. They carry out the project, record and analyse their results and reflect on the project and their learnings. All Silver projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform.
Gold Awards are typically completed by students aged 16+ over seventy hours. Students’ projects are self-directed, longer term and immerse them in real research. At this level, we recommend students work with a mentor from their chosen STEM field of study. All Gold projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform. There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.
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dirt detectives Research project How do bacteria spread and infect many people - What causes disease? - Are disease, illness and infection all the same thing? What happens when diseases get beyond our control - Find out what an epidemic and a pandemic are? - What types of disease can become an epidemic? What can we do to stop them? - Find out about treatments for specific epidemics. - Is it always about medicine or are there other measures that help? What examples are there from history and from recent times? - Think about the last 10 years and look at news reports - Find out more from history sources about both modern history and ancient times Are people in other parts of the world at more risk than us? - Consider different groups of people. - Look for patterns and trends - Is it about where people live; their living conditions or their wealth? Why won’t better hand washing not help with diseases like malaria? - How is Malaria spread? - What organisms are involved? What else is being done to control malaria? - What conditions encourage Malaria - What can you do to protect yourself? - What other changes might help reduce or eradicate Malaria? soap or nope? Practical project What water quality might some people in the world have, it is not all as good as your water? - How pure is your tap water? - People in developing countries need to use natural water sources like ponds, river or lakes, what else might be in the water? - Will quality make a difference to the effectiveness of hand washing? What will you look for to see if the washing has made a difference? - Bacteria cannot be seen so how can you tell if they are there or not? - Think about experiments to grow bacteria. What are the different products you could test? - What different hand washing products are there? - Are there some that claim to kill bacteria? - Are any described as sanitizers? Is soap as effective as more expensive products? - How will you judge its effectiveness - What will you compare it with? - How might you make this comparison fair? How will you compare the differences these products make? - Will your chosen method work for all the products? - Do you need to consider the costs of the products? - Do some of them have other benefits or are they more convenient? What sorts of diseases might widespread hand washing prevent? - You will need to think about what causes disease. - What sorts of disease are transmitted by contact? - What sorts of diseases might lack of sanitation/hand washing spread?
Clean communications Communication project A variety of techniques makes the key messages clear, simple to remember and accessible - Short sentences with clear themes work well - Pictures can say as much as words and are more memorable Sometimes songs, poems plays or cartoons can work better than written materials - Making messages relevant to people’s lives is important - Something catchy will be repeated far more often and remembered - Popular culture is a useful tool Useful Links The following links are recommended in the pupil notes: www.unicef.org/wash/index_wes_related.html Information about common water and sanitation-related diseases www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/ Information on Global Goal 3 ‘Health and Wellbeing’ www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/pages/ the-history-of-vaccination.aspx The history of vaccines Think big and think small, you want reach as many people as possible - Not everyone responds to the same things - Think about different age groups and interests Fun things are easy to remember even if the messages are serious - Something that makes us smile will stick in your mind - People pass humorous ideas on to each other and share them You could try to find out about literacy levels in different parts of the world to judge how to make your materials accessible to everyone. - There will be a wide variety of literacy skill, some will be very well developed others less so - Each audience will need materials of the correct level if they are to engage Health and safety Please do encourage students to take out their own risk assessments if they are carrying out a practical project or a survey, then check them yourself. CLEAPSS will provide any advice should you need it. www.cleapss.org.uk