Science Inquiry

We had a Science Inquiry Day with the Bangna Campus on Tuesday. I was a moderator for one of the sessions. What happened is kids were asked to create a science project for science class and then they voted on who they wanted to present the project at the science inquiry conference. These pictures are from the conference.

The first is of a shoe that has a pocket on the outside. Two of my kids performed this experiment. They were trying to create a shoe pocket to hold items (keys, money, etc.) but they wanted something that was not intrusive and could keep the contents dry. The experiment was trying to find material that would was waterproof. They had several different types of material and poured 50ml of water on the material. After a certain amount of time, they measured how much of the water had dripped into a tray below the cloth. The third picture is of the two girls who presented and their materials.

The second picture is the poster of one of my boys who presented. His experiment was over soil compaction and if compacted soil could soak up as much water as loose soil. He placed some soil in a cup, poured water on top of the soil and used a stop watch to determine how long it took for the water to fall through the soil. Then he took the same amount of soil and compacted it by pressing down on it, poured water on top and used the stopwatch to determine how long it took for the water to fall through the soil.

The final picture is two of my students eating popcorn. A girl, not one of my students, had an experiment to determine which popcorn popped more kernals, Orville Redenbacher or Pop Secret. She popped 5 bags of each for the same amount of time and at the same temperature and then counted the un-popped kernals. As part of the experiment, she brought 6 bags of popcorn in for the conference and the students were able to eat the popcorn.

Overall, the conference went really well. I think the kids enjoyed it and had a good time getting out of class. The kids had to ask at least one question and some of them were asking the same questions as others or asking questions that were just answered in the powerpoint. I noticed this and used it as a learning experience today in class. I asked the students if they noticed that the questions were being repeated, only phrased differently and how some questions were answered less than 30 seconds before they were asked?

Many of the students, both presenters and non-presenters, noticed this. The presenters said it was annoying answering the same question several times and being asked a question they had just given an answer for 30 seconds ago. I told the students that they now have a sense of some of the frustrations that teachers go through. Some of the students understood this, some of them didn't. It was good to open their minds to a different perspective.

Aaron