How can science and technology activites be made engaging and relevent in Primary Education?
How can Science and Technology
activities be made engaging and relevant in Primary Education?
Science and Technology are a massive part of our school curriculum and are vital elements of any practical or theoretical learning. Science allows us to observe, to evaluate and to collect knowledge and data and then technology allows us to apply this knowledge collected in a practical way, it also can be what the experiment or observation is conducted on, and it can allow us to gather the best results for our experiments.
Looking at Science and Technology within the welsh curriculum, Donaldson explains to us that, ‘This Area of Learning and Experience capitalises on children and young people’s curiosity about our natural, physical world and universe though investigating, understanding, and explaining. They learn to generate and test ideas, gather evidence, make observations, carry out practical investigations, and communicate with others. They also learn how through computer science, the horizons of what is possible can be extended beyond our current imagination’ (Donaldson, 2015, p. 50).
He then goes on to explain that ‘Children and young people will also have opportunities to learn how technology is used to design products that improve the quality of human life and to apply their scientific and other knowledge to practical purposes and challenges. For schools, this means providing children and young people with rich opportunities to develop technological skills, knowledge, understanding and attributes through designing and developing products and systems. They will be able to explore the impact of technology on society and the environment’ (Donaldson, 2015, p.50).
However, on this being said it is becoming an increasingly worrying problem about the crisis within Science and Technology. There is currently a “Critical shortage of women in science jobs” according to the (BBC, 2016). In the report it was said that “The report for the Welsh government is seeking ways to get more women into Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) roles. Research found a shortfall of 600 Stem academic roles could be filled by having more women in relevant careers.” (BBC, 2016). This is a direct link as to why there is currently a crisis in Science and Technology, there is a desperate cry for women to apply for these jobs and help our future economic system. “Prof Julie Williams, chief scientific advisor to the Welsh government, said: ‘The lack of women in Stem professions matters for their individual life chances as they are missing out on many well-paid and rewarding jobs. More broadly, however, it limits the talent available to our science base and businesses and is therefore a constraint on Wales' future economic prosperity." (BBC, 2016). Maybe we need to think about here as to how we can promote the fields of Science and Technology to women, or even if we should be promoting it to young girls at a young age so they grow up knowing that their field needs them. If there is such a big crisis within science and technology, then why aren’t we ensuring that we address these problems early on throughout a child’s life, than rather when they are at the age of say G.C.S.E level and struggle to know the value of their impact upon science and technology.
Furthermore, if we look into how science and technology activities can be made engaging in Primary Education then we need to look at how we can make them more fun and relevant for children. A good example of this, is the erupting volcano. Children could be learning the topic of volcanoes and by using technology they could research as to why they erupt or what type of volcanoes erupt. Then to make it even more fun, they could build their own volcano and using science they could pour liquid into the volcano; causing it to erupt as a result of a scientific reaction. To take this one step further, the children could then film the reaction using technology, and analyse as to when and how the volcano erupted. Then in turn, this would allow the topic to become fun, engaging and very knowledgably for the children involved.
Another example to engage Science and Technology within the classroom, would be to make slime. As we know, slime has become a viral activity to do over the past couple of years and so many kids enjoy making it or watch it being made. Below I have screenshotted a basic slime recipe for kids to follow:
Science and Technology are a massive part of our school curriculum and are vital elements of any practical or theoretical learning. Science allows us to observe, to evaluate and to collect knowledge and data and then technology allows us to apply this knowledge collected in a practical way, it also can be what the experiment or observation is conducted on, and it can allow us to gather the best results for our experiments.
Looking at Science and Technology within the welsh curriculum, Donaldson explains to us that, ‘This Area of Learning and Experience capitalises on children and young people’s curiosity about our natural, physical world and universe though investigating, understanding, and explaining. They learn to generate and test ideas, gather evidence, make observations, carry out practical investigations, and communicate with others. They also learn how through computer science, the horizons of what is possible can be extended beyond our current imagination’ (Donaldson, 2015, p. 50).
He then goes on to explain that ‘Children and young people will also have opportunities to learn how technology is used to design products that improve the quality of human life and to apply their scientific and other knowledge to practical purposes and challenges. For schools, this means providing children and young people with rich opportunities to develop technological skills, knowledge, understanding and attributes through designing and developing products and systems. They will be able to explore the impact of technology on society and the environment’ (Donaldson, 2015, p.50).
However, on this being said it is becoming an increasingly worrying problem about the crisis within Science and Technology. There is currently a “Critical shortage of women in science jobs” according to the (BBC, 2016). In the report it was said that “The report for the Welsh government is seeking ways to get more women into Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) roles. Research found a shortfall of 600 Stem academic roles could be filled by having more women in relevant careers.” (BBC, 2016). This is a direct link as to why there is currently a crisis in Science and Technology, there is a desperate cry for women to apply for these jobs and help our future economic system. “Prof Julie Williams, chief scientific advisor to the Welsh government, said: ‘The lack of women in Stem professions matters for their individual life chances as they are missing out on many well-paid and rewarding jobs. More broadly, however, it limits the talent available to our science base and businesses and is therefore a constraint on Wales' future economic prosperity." (BBC, 2016). Maybe we need to think about here as to how we can promote the fields of Science and Technology to women, or even if we should be promoting it to young girls at a young age so they grow up knowing that their field needs them. If there is such a big crisis within science and technology, then why aren’t we ensuring that we address these problems early on throughout a child’s life, than rather when they are at the age of say G.C.S.E level and struggle to know the value of their impact upon science and technology.
Furthermore, if we look into how science and technology activities can be made engaging in Primary Education then we need to look at how we can make them more fun and relevant for children. A good example of this, is the erupting volcano. Children could be learning the topic of volcanoes and by using technology they could research as to why they erupt or what type of volcanoes erupt. Then to make it even more fun, they could build their own volcano and using science they could pour liquid into the volcano; causing it to erupt as a result of a scientific reaction. To take this one step further, the children could then film the reaction using technology, and analyse as to when and how the volcano erupted. Then in turn, this would allow the topic to become fun, engaging and very knowledgably for the children involved.
Another example to engage Science and Technology within the classroom, would be to make slime. As we know, slime has become a viral activity to do over the past couple of years and so many kids enjoy making it or watch it being made. Below I have screenshotted a basic slime recipe for kids to follow:
(Recipe
from Raring2go.com)
Personally, I think that slime is the perfect way to get kids encouraged to play around with Science. This could be used to look at the topic ‘reactions’ or something similar. You could ensure that the children make this recipe for slime and could then ask them how the reaction of mixing these ingredients together works. Then to progress this even further, you could ask the children to play around with the balance of the ingredients or the ingredients themselves. You can ask them questions like ‘what happens if we add more bicarbonate of soda, or what happens if we don’t add the shaving foam’. This can be done to help children look at different types of reactions, and try to explain as to why these reactions happen. Again, to take this one step further you could add food colouring to the slime mixture and look at what the colours add to the slime. Here, you could experiment with mixing colours and look at what two colours mixed together make, or you could look into the amount of drops used. You could experiment with using 2 drops of food colouring and then increasing the amount of drops each time, by doing this you can see how the amount of drops corresponds with how strong the colour turns out. These are all direct links to the use of Science and Technology within Primary Education.
References
BBC article (2016): Critical Shortage of Women in Science, Accessed Online at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35747420
Donaldson (2015, p.50) Successful Futures Wales, Accessed Online at: https://learn.cardiffmet.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/869447/mod_resource/content/1/Successful%20Futures.pdf
Raring 2 go: Slime Recipe, Accessed Online at https://raring2go.co.uk/articles/kids-zone/spring-activities/slime-recipes
Personally, I think that slime is the perfect way to get kids encouraged to play around with Science. This could be used to look at the topic ‘reactions’ or something similar. You could ensure that the children make this recipe for slime and could then ask them how the reaction of mixing these ingredients together works. Then to progress this even further, you could ask the children to play around with the balance of the ingredients or the ingredients themselves. You can ask them questions like ‘what happens if we add more bicarbonate of soda, or what happens if we don’t add the shaving foam’. This can be done to help children look at different types of reactions, and try to explain as to why these reactions happen. Again, to take this one step further you could add food colouring to the slime mixture and look at what the colours add to the slime. Here, you could experiment with mixing colours and look at what two colours mixed together make, or you could look into the amount of drops used. You could experiment with using 2 drops of food colouring and then increasing the amount of drops each time, by doing this you can see how the amount of drops corresponds with how strong the colour turns out. These are all direct links to the use of Science and Technology within Primary Education.
References
BBC article (2016): Critical Shortage of Women in Science, Accessed Online at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35747420
Donaldson (2015, p.50) Successful Futures Wales, Accessed Online at: https://learn.cardiffmet.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/869447/mod_resource/content/1/Successful%20Futures.pdf
Raring 2 go: Slime Recipe, Accessed Online at https://raring2go.co.uk/articles/kids-zone/spring-activities/slime-recipes
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