Science topics for ages 13–14

Living things, materials, forces, energy and Earth — taught as things that happen rather than things to memorise, and pitched at the year the child is actually in.

Early secondary. Topics carry the weight and the vocabulary of exam work, and expect a child who can hold several ideas at once.

20 topics · 120 hands-on stations · 1 free to try

TRY IT — no sign-up

Inside a Single Cell

A cell is not a bag of jelly with a dot in the middle. It is a compartmentalised chemical factory, and almost every compartment exists to keep one set of reactions away from another. Flip every card.

Holds the DNA and controls which proteins are made. Calling it "the brain" is misleading — it gives no orders. It is a reference library the rest of the cell reads from, copying out one gene at a time as messenger RNA.
"Powerhouse" is a slogan. The actual job is aerobic respiration: glucose + oxygen → carbon dioxide + water, with the released energy stored in about 30 molecules of ATP. ATP is the cell's rechargeable battery, not its food.
Reads messenger RNA and links amino acids into a protein — the machine that turns a gene into a working molecule. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for mapping its structure atom by atom.
A double layer of fat molecules with proteins floating in it. It is selectively permeable — some things diffuse straight through, others need a protein channel or a pump. Every cell on Earth has one.

This is one station of 6 in the trail, and finishing the trail earns an Explorer badge. See the whole trail →

Free printable worksheet

Ten questions from Cell Structure and Function on one page, with an answer key at the bottom — a PDF you can print for homework, a car journey or a classroom. No account needed and nothing to sign up for.

⬇️ Download the Cell Structure and Function worksheet (PDF)See the whole trail →

A few of the Science topics at this age

🔬
Cell Structure and Function
Free

The smallest unit that counts as alive — and the machinery packed inside it

🧫 Inside a Single Cell · 🗂️ Plant, Animal or Both · 📐 Why Cells Stay Small · 🔗 Structure and Job · 🕵️ Cell Detective · 🎯 Practice Zone
💨
Tissues and Organ Systems

How single cells are assembled into something that can run a whole body

🏗 Levels of Organisation · 🧵 The Tissue Types · 🔗 Organ and System · 🗂️ Which Tissue Family? · 🧐 Why Build It This Way · 🎯 Practice Zone
❤
Human Physiology

Circulation, gas exchange, nerves and hormones — the body regulating itself

🎚️ How the Body Regulates Itself · 🔁 One Complete Circuit · 📈 Cardiac Output Under Load · 📮 Chemical Messengers · ❌ Physiology Myths · 🎯 Practice Zone
🧬
Genetics and Heredity

Punnett squares done properly — and why "a gene for X" is usually wrong

📖 The Vocabulary, Precisely · ⬜ Punnett Squares, Worked · 🧮 Genetics Problems · 🔗 Term and Meaning · ⚠️ "A Gene For..." — Usually Wrong · 🎯 Practice Zone
🦕
Evolution and Natural Selection

The one idea that makes the whole of biology make sense — stated precisely

🏗 The Argument, Step by Step · 🦒 The Giraffe Test · 🔎 What Is the Evidence? · 📊 Selection in Action · 🧠 "Just a Theory" · 🎯 Practice Zone