For the rest of the year, at school, we're going to be learning about science topics. Next week, to kick off our study of science, I want to do a "Play with Science" week. My favorite teacher ever, Mr. Wayne, led a conference session last summer and he was talking about how so many kids are turned off by science and don't find it exciting. I kind of knew what he was talking about because I've tried to do experiments with my second graders in the past and they just don't really care. Unless there's an explosion or something, they aren't interested. But then he had us think about how most experiments in school are done.
The teacher gives the list of procedures, you follow the procedures, see the result, and write it up using all the correct steps of the scientific method. The problem is that there is no authentic excitement in that. It's not genuine. The kids aren't doing an experiment the way the original person who figured out the experiment did it. That person got to play with it. He or she had to try it lots of different ways to figure out what would make it happen and what wouldn't.
So Mr. Wayne showed us an experiment that involved crushing a can. He showed us the whole thing, including the can crushing as the result. I said, "But weren't WE supposed to discover that?" He said, "No, YOU'RE supposed to play." Then he gave us all the materials that we needed and told us to try to replicate it, but to also play with it and try other ways of making it happen. Before we knew it, we were laughing, playing, using different materials, different techniques, trying to get it to happen, and 45 minutes went by like it was no time at all.
At the end, we all kept talking and talking about what we tried, what worked, what didn't. He said that THAT was how the original scientists did it. They played with it, kept careful records, changed one thing at a time, did it over and over again, etc. THAT'S what makes science fun - trying out your own ideas...being curious...PLAYING, not just copying a list of procedures that somebody else already figured out.
So that's what we're going to do this week. I'm going to follow the same model as Mr. Wayne and show the kids how to do something first and then let their ideas control what happens next. Here's one of the demonstrations I'm going to do:
3 comentarios:
THAT WAS SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the Cat's Meow-
I have seen this done many times by teachers, but they seldom ask questions, extend, or offer explanations. That's too bad, since this could be developed into a great science learning experience, as it is it is just fun.
that was so bad i've seen much better and you didn't even do it properly so it didn't work as good! so in short words it was crap!
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