Activities

Activities
====//In this section you are invited to share and compile activities that you have used in the classroom which incorporate and utilise the investigative learning approach. Here resources such as worksheets, lesson plans and learning outcomes can be uploaded, edited and commented upon, with a view to providing teaching supports for science at primary-level. *Don't forget you can add you opinion in the discussion section above, or add content to this page// (see Wiki Tips page for how)*.====


 * Activities to try out: **

Acid & Bases (Create foaming aliens in your kitchen - link to PDF)

Aeroplanes

Buoyancy

[|Crime Scene Investigation activities] (lifting fingerprints, splatter analysis and ink tracing - link to PDF)

[|Investigating the principles of gravity]

[|Lesson plans for a 'Science Discovery' day]

[|Make a fruit battery]


 * Online Video Activities explaining :**

Hydrogen peroxide, dry ice & the liquid nitrogen experiment

Know of some more? Add them to this list!

__** Science Journals **__
Martin (2009) recommends that teachers should encourage students to keep science journals as a first step to beginning their career as young scientists. Using a science journal, children can record their findings as well as beginning to formulate their methodologies, and articulate and express their learning. They may record data tables, charts and observations in this manner and build up a collection of detailed experiments they have carried out. Teachers can also use the journals to track progress. Evidence can be presented in illustrations, photos, journal entries and can be extended to online tools such as video and blogging. Why not keep an online science journal? Have you experiences of using journals in the classroom? Share it by clicking into the discussion tab above.

__**Data Logging**__
Data logging is an activity well suited to inquiry-based science (Gipps, 2002) as it allows the students to actually 'do' science and carry out the same methodologies used by real scientists. A good example of a data logging project for primary level school children is the Greenwave project [|www.Greenwave.ie].

The simple skills utilised for a project such as Greenwave should prove invaluable to students as they progress on to second level education, particularly in science.

__**[|Active Teaching and Learning Methods]**__ From the NI curriculum website a really useful resource. Practical advice to teachers on a varied range of methods which they may wish to integrate into their daily learning and teaching activities. It is hoped that teachers will find it a helpful tool in planning and creating a stimulating, enriching, challenging and focused environment for both their pupils and themselves.