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SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS THROUGH ENGLISH Age group: 14-18 Keywords: Science, Critical Thinking, Deduction, Analytical Skills, Group Work, Resourcefulness, Planning, Problem Solving. Time required: 60 minutes Number of people: 9-30 Materials: That depends on the choice of experiments made, some examples have been given below. Space: Middle-sized to large room. Activity explored and suggested by: Zaklad Doskonalenia Zawodowego w Kielcach - Poland.
Aim of the method: To promote discovery and learning, and to improve the participants’ skills in drawing conclusions and making inferences. It also allows to discover the basic laws of science and find their examples in our everyday life. The activity improves the ability to hypothesize results and discoveries, develops observational and problem solving skills, and promotes curiosity. Additionally, it encourages to explore cause and effect through various materials and to discover and get inspired by the natural environment. Preparation: The room should be arranged in such a way as to ensure effective teamwork, i.e., the tables should be pushed together or taken out of the room altogether if the participants feel more comfortable working on the floor. The tables’ arrangement should enable the facilitator to move freely among the groups and offer individual help whenever it’s needed. It’s important to support both participant interaction and participant-facilitator communication. The facilitator should prepare two boxes – both containing a bunch of everyday objects (most of which can be found in any kitchen), and place them at the front of the group. Next to the boxes he or she should put a pile of A4 sheets of paper with instructions written on them. An instruction should only be a simple step-by-step explanation of the procedures, it should not contain the name of the experiment, explain it or describe its results in any way.
DESCRIPTION INTRO The facilitator welcomes the group. CREATING COMFORT AND GETTING INTO THE TOPIC To introduce movement, the facilitator gets the participants’ attention and splits them into groups at the same time, by asking each participant to come up to the front and pick either an object or an instruction sheet. Then, the participants are told that they are going to carry out science experiments using the objects and the instructions they have picked. For that, they need to find the rest of their 3 person teams, based on which objects and instructions they think better fit together. After the participants have teamed up, the facilitator checks and rearranges the groups if necessary. As the participants have only picked one item each, he or she also provides the teams with the rest of the supplies needed to conduct the experiments.
