Science Practical Test

My colleague, Aishah, shared with me what she observed at the Science practical test which was conducted for the Primary 5 pupils. I was very surprised that pupils did not know how to use the magnifying glass. She saw many pupils used the magnifying glass  like the man below.

Instead of magnifying the specimen, they magnify their own eyes. So whatever they drew were all small. This make me reflect on my daily lessons. I will not think of teaching them to use the hand lens. I always ask my pupils use the hand lens to observe the specimen without teaching them to use. I always have this assumption that every child has the ability to use hand lens. It is such a common toy that we will use from young. Now, I realise they do not have the prior knowledge of using the hand lens. I guess they may get their prior knowledge of using the lens from what they saw, like the picture above which is commonly found in the net. I have to teach and model for them the use of hand lens. This is an important process skill - the use of apparatus which is one of the learning outcome in primary science syllabus.

Pupils were to measure the mass of a metallic cylinder. They placed the cylinder on the weighing machine as shown below.

Why is placing the the cylinder as in (1) is better than as in (2)?

When they placed the cylinder as in (2), the cylinder rolled to and fro in the weighing pan. Thus, the pointer also vibrated.

I told Aishah these are good qualitative data which we should share with teachers and pupils so that both teachers and pupils can learn. Teachers will know what to highlight when getting pupils to conduct these activities and pupils will learn the skills of doing experiment.

In one of the Science lessons, I gave the pupils the feedback on the above observation. They all had a good laugh.

Next year, I plan to get teachers to write down what they observe when doing Science practical. Compile these data for other teachers so that teachers can make use of the data when planning the lesson.