Showcasing science
Published: 23 June 2020
This year, the Great Science Share went online with six themed weeks encouraging children to showcase their science investigations. Nearly 87,000 signed up to take part. Matt Crook, Year 6 teacher at Lunt’s Heath Primary School, and co-ordinator for the Ogden Halton Partnership, has been encouraging pupils to take part – engaging in the weekly themes and sharing their science questions, learning and ideas.
“I have been creating and promoting resources for the Great Science Share throughout the campaign,” explains Matt. “ I have shared weekly resource sheets across the primary and secondary schools in our partnership. We have seen a fantastic amount of science at home over the past six weeks. It has been amazing to see the children excited about science and sharing their work from home.
“I was back in school for week five of the GSS, and able to work with my Year 6 students. The theme for the week was centred around World Ocean Day and we combined that with the #takeabiteoutofclimatechange initiative. My class loved it. They made a socially distant film which won the Global Class of the week award from True Education.
Global Class of the Week
In an increasingly global world, it’s more essential that ever that young people are equipped to tackle the global issues facing us today, including climate change, poverty and inequality.The Global Class of the Week award aims to recognise those engaging in valuable conversation around international issues within the classroom. Whether it’s participating in shared projects, learning about the Sustainable Development Goals, learning a language, or getting involved with the local community, a Global Class is one that takes an active interest in protecting the world we live in.
“Our six weeks of science culminated in the Great Science Share day which took place last week,” continues Matt. “I had eight different socially distant experiments set up for my class. Each student completed an investigation and then presented their findings.
“It was a great day, because we did fun things whilst learning about science.”
Pupil
“On GSS day, we also live streamed a space workshop video so all the classes from Lunt’s Heath could watch together alongside children at home. I recorded the film with two other teachers and Daresbury Laboratory. The teachers were playing the part of the students, trying to answer the questions! During the live stream, our pupils were able to comment on the answers together,” explains Matt.
“It was a great event, we had eight classes watching in school and more than 100 children watching at home. Live commenting throughout. The video currently has 196 views and 100 comments which is well beyond anything we ever imagined. I am currently working with Wendy from Daresbury to create follow up resources/videos to engage the children.
“One of our questions was put to an engineer who worked on the Webb telescope and he took the time to respond to the question which was rather cool!
“The space video was good people at home could also watch and we could connect with them.”
“There was so much we learnt about space. I have tried to spot Venus since.”
“It was good fun to see Mr Crook and some other teachers on the video, it made it more exciting.”
Pupil feedback
The video and Year 6 experiments were part of a science-themed day for Lunt’s Heath as they celebrated this year’s Great Science Share with their own super-scientists. Although the GSS campaign for 2020 might be officially over, the resource sheets created by Matt are still available to inspire scientists at school or at home. You can find them to download on the Lunt’s Heath website.