I had a very large, very enthusiastic Y9 class this year. They liked immediate feedback, praise, practicals, creating animations, working with others and asking questions. They are very sensitive as to whether teachers 'like' them or not and respond accordingly.
I tried to achieve two things with this class: help them to read better, and get them to enjoy science. Those were my two goals.
Activities they appeared to really enjoy throughout the year included:
ReadTheory.
Meeting my Mum.
Programming robots.
Learning about Chernobyl.
The cow eye dissections - photos all here.
ANY practical that I felt confident enough to give them.
Creating an animation on Hyperstudio about how soundwaves are heard, and how hearing damage occurs.
On the last day of Term I set them two practicals, and the one I think they enjoyed best was where they had to genuinely inquire, themselves. I told them I didn't know the answer. I told them they would make a few mistakes and to just learn from it, wash it out and try again. I told them the goal was to create the most beautiful 'density tower' by floating less-dense liquids on top of more-dense liquids.
Everyone enjoyed themselves.
Then we went outside and made ice-cream, which unfortunately I didn't take any photos of. You can find ice-cream photos taken in the exact same location on the exact same day of term from 2014 on this blog if you go back far enough though!
Robotics with Russell was great fun.
We also did some dry ice practicals (shooting steam at paper cups, making coins squeal, those sorts of things) at the same time as elephants toothpaste:
Keep being curious 9PKr!
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