Lady Evelyn Science Day!

​Today started earlier than most, for my Enhancing Math & Science thinking class we arrived at Lady Evelyn Alternative School. Our class’ task was to develop and implement a science activity to the school’s classes. My team focused on teaching about space to a grade 5 class this morning in three different activities. The first activity developed by Julia & Genevieve let the children build little planets with baking soda, food colouring and water. After they had made their planets in order, the students then used vinegar to make the planets disappear in a fun and fizzing mess. The second activity was delivered by Julie & Melissa, they ran a team trivia game called Science Fact or Fiction. Each team of 4 would discuss amongst themselves on whether the statement from the teacher was fact or fiction and raise an answer sign accordingly. The final activity that I designed and delivered for the kids was a worksheet puzzle about the solar system’s planets. 

My intent was to teach two core things to the students, firstly was where the name of the planets originate and a fun fact about each planet. I also wanted to make it a manipulative, so one sheet of paper had cutouts of the answers they would then glue into the answer sheet. I started the activity by getting all the student’s attention before communicating the task, I’ve learned it is important to have they focus on you before you deliver the instructions to not repeat yourself in the future. I held up each page as I explained what they needed to do, shared with them the expectations of the tasks and what time they had to complete it in. I told them they could use the scissors and glue provided and discuss amongst themselves to problem solve, but that I was there to assist at any point with a simple raise of their hand. I wanted them to use their problem-solving skills when finding the answers, so I wouldn’t directly spoon feed them the answer, but give them clues. For instance, the clue for the name of Mars was “Tuesday, the day of the week got its name from this Roman God/planet”. When asked about this, I would give them the clue “What is Tuesday in French?” they would quickly answer “mardi”, which I then told them “and if you were to break that down, does that resemble any of the planets?”. Many of the children connected that mar-di meant Mars-day in Latin and I gave them the similar example of Thursday being “Thor’s-day”. I kept it fun, informative and gave them all support along the way as they were trying to solve their puzzle. I was impressed at how independent this group was, when they have something to cut out and glue they stayed on task better than had I just been reading to them. 

My observations about Lady Evelyn are that the students there are given lots of freedom with their learning and from that they’ve developed a confidence in their own abilities. There didn’t seem to be much fear of making a mistake or having a wrong answer, their natural curiosity shone through. This is especially important in science where making mistakes and taking chances can lead to great discoveries. I particularly liked delivering my task, adding the manipulative gave them a quick activity to do as they problem solved. Each child took on the task differently, some read the answers before cutting them, some just went at the sheet with the scissors immediately. On my suggestion, they all placed the answer cutouts on the answer sheet before gluing them. I believed giving them guiding constraints helped them use the time efficiently and stay on task. The quicker students took pride in finishing first and helped their desk mates to finish theirs, I had mentioned they could work as a team to complete the task and they followed accordingly. Overall, my activity and the other stations in our class demonstrated that students like to experiment, work in teams and learn science through doing. Although it is difficult to explore the cosmos from a classroom, space is a topic that stimulates the imagination of the young mind and should be fun for the students and teacher. 

In our wrap up conclusion for the entire group, we asked the learners to share what was their favourite thing they learned today, what else they would like to know more about. It was good to give them a bit of time to self-reflect and consolidate what they had learned. I also shared a few more things that would fascinate them, one of them being an anecdote of earlier this year when I met astronaut Chris Hadfield. I shared Cmdr. Hadfield’s story about when the ISS had a leak and they had to make an emergency spacewalk to save the station. The kids were surprised to hear about the physical exertion involved in space walks, how the thickness of space suits make moving so tough that a couple hours in that suit leave you exhausted, bruised and battered. 

Overall, I had a wonderful time with the students of Lady Evelyn, their open minds and strong characters were refreshing to interact with. The learners showed their enthusiasm and curiosity towards us strangers coming into the class to teach them. I’m a strong believer that attitude is important for a teacher, because how you interact with a certain subject with project onto many of the children. So as young teachers, we must show our excitement and the importance of learning all subjects, but especially those we may not be the most comfortable with. I know personally that science and math are favourite subjects of mine and I look forward to sharing that love with the next generation.