Introduction – Another background story

In 2010, I visited a primary school in Nepal with an empty Science Lab. I created simple science experiments, taught the teachers to demonstrate and wrote science reports. Science can stimulate curiosity. Let’s give it a go.

Entry 14 Science Experiment 1

Entry 16 Science Experiment 2

Entry 23 Kids Reactions

Fundamentals of Science

The scientific approach is based on a few core principles:

1. Accuracy: Scientific research must be conducted with precision, accuracy, and objectivity.
2. Replicability: Results should be replicable and reproducible by other scientists.
3. Testability: Hypotheses and theories should be testable and open to experimentation.
4. Systematic: Research should be conducted in a systematic, organized manner.
5. Evidence-based: Results should be based on evidence collected from experiments and observations.

The above seems to be quite advanced in explaining Science to an 8 or 11-year-old.

How would you explain Science?

Use your eyes and mind to observe.

Based on my time in Nepal, I learnt that Science can be based on your senses and mind. I put together material and apparatus that I could see and did Science with them. I prefer to use eyes and mind, (don’t smell stuff nor taste stuff and protect your ears.) In 2010 Nepal, although I was in the Capital, Kathmandu, and the school was reasonably well funded. I still had to be resourceful. Maybe you can replicate the experiments.

Write about what will you see, how would you investigate it?

• Different types of wood (hardwood / softwood) cut into blocks to investigate density, mass and volume.
• Separation of sand and salt mixture, (actually quite relevant to King’s Scholarship exams) What is soluble? What is the Solute? What is the Solvent? What happens? How to separate the mixture?
• Crystalisation from saturated solution, how can you get large crystals and how can you get small crystals.
• Moments calculations to measure the mass of unknown weights, and find the centre of gravity of 2-Dimensional irregular shapes.
• Pinhole camera shows how light travels in a straight line and the image is inversed. I remember when I mentioned the inverse square law from a point source for the light intensity, no-one responded.
• Visualisation of magnetic field lines because little magnets were available to purchase.
• Spring and a mass equals to Hooks’s Law. What experiment can you perform?

You can use your eyes and mind and combine with the fundamentals of Science to write an experimental plan and build a science report.

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