We discovered the reason science education is declining in quality and quantity is because primary school teachers are actually anxious about teaching science. So, our idea was to not mention the thing they were scared of: science. Instead, we decided to create an innovative teaching tool. We called it Explorify - a programme of hundreds of classroom activities to spark kids’ curiosity about the world around them. It was science in disguise. It made science fun, accessible and inclusive to all pupils.

Teachers are bombarded with boring teaching resources all the time. So, we made sure Explorify was totally different. We branded it as a consumer product. We focused on sticky naming to excite the children. The visual branding was attractive and exciting, miles away from the education world’s clip art and Comic Sans. Forget classroom PDFs; Explorify has online access, interactive UX, engaging films and gamified learning with rewards.

Our partner education specialists AB tested Explorify for 8 months, to ensure it was high quality and inspiring.

At launch, our marketing strategy was unconventional. With a media budget of only £3,000, we subverted the norms of the education world. Our promotional films were inspired by the successes of TV shows such as ‘Gogglesprogs’, focusing on pupils’ charming and inspired reactions to Explorify. We ignored cluttered teacher media channels (staffroom pigeon hole, education magazines), and controversially chose Facebook.

At beta launch in January 2017 Explorify consisted of 30 activities. Within one year, 200 activities have been developed and Explorify is ever growing in scale and popularity. It is now supported with content donated by the BBC, The Science Museum, The Eden Project, who all see the potential success of Explorify.

The tool is free, fulfilling Wellcome’s desire to make science education accessible and inclusive to all.

We tripled the sign-up target at launch. And with 20,000 sign ups (13,000 verified primary school teachers) in just one year, we are reaching at least 325,000 pupils with inclusive, quality science education. Activities are consistently 98% positively rated and we have hundreds of qualitative responses from teachers about how Explorify is transforming science education in their schools, for instance, “Because of Explorify, my pupils have been given a chance in science”, or, “The children ask me every day if they can do more Explorify!”

Explorify is ever-growing, with ever-changing content, now supported by the BBC and other organisations. It is even being translated into different languages. With hundreds of thousands of children accessing the product within just one year, Explorify promises to transform science education for an entire generation. Explorify is the accessible science education tool for a new generation.

Sign up and try it for yourself at https://explorify.wellcome.ac.uk/