CURRICULUM NOTES

GENERAL EXPERIENCES

A SCIENCE FANTASTIC workshop presents students with experiences that involve:

• Development of science and technology understanding
• Creative thinking and imagination
• Investigating, observing, testing and conclusion makingLateral thinking skills
• Co-operative learning
• Verbal communication
• Student-centred learning

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

The SCIENCE FANTASTIC program was designed to achieve the following::

• Integrate science and experimentation into the classroom environment
• Provide a learner-centred direction for students
• Allow students the opportunity to think, deduce, test and conclude from their own efforts
• Foster enquiry and questioning in science situations
• Develop self-paced discovery in science
• Use social interaction to develop learning styles and skills in science and technology experiences
• Apply natural learning methods and behaviours used by informal group situations

TEACHING STRATEGIES

As the SCIENCE FANTASTIC are centred on student self-learning, the following teaching strategies are suggested as a means to make the workshop more effective in your science programme. The plan is divided into three stages, but may be omitted, developed fiurther or integrated depending on your individual classrom need and requirements:

STAGE ONE Before the workshop

• Familiarise yourself with the Teacher's Study Guide
• Discuss the concept of science with students
• Discuss the purpose of doing the SCIENCE FANTASTIC workshop
• Outline the format of the workshop with your students
• Assign students into approximately 17 groups with either 2 or 3 students per group depending on your program schedule
• Invite students to bring to your classroom any experiment they have performed themselves at home
• Inform students of times, location of workshop and procedures.

STAGE TWO On the day of the workshop

• Locate for students the areas to be used for washing of hands
• Advise student on school safety policy and the procedures for First Aid
• Familiarise yourself with the experiments on display

STAGE THREE Following the workshop

• Use the worksheets from the Teacher's Study Guide
• Plan a research activity using your library or resource center
• Instigate group discussions on the experiments performed in the workshop
• Develop your own classroom experiments

FOLLOW UP ACTIVITIES
After your class has been through the SCIENCE FANTASTIC workshop, it may be helpful to determine the effectiveness of the program on your students. The following are a series of suggested follow-up activites which may assist in your own science program development:

ACTIVITIES

• " Copy a few of the worksheets in the Teacher's Study Guide and hold library research lessons
• Use the worksheets as a homework activity
• Reconstruct some of the easier experiments in your own classroom for the student to do again, develop further or write a strructured lab report
• Nominate students to do a research project or structured oral report on one of the experiments they performed describing what they had learnt from the experience

STUDENT FEEDBACK

• Ask students which experiment was the most popular and determine why it was liked so much
• Determine what your students think of as being FUN in science
• Invite students to discuss what aspect they liked about the workshop and what they would like to do in their own classroom during science lessons
• Determine what areas of science your students find most interesting
• Ask student to write down their views of science and construct a poster for your classroom

CLASSROOM APPROACHES

• Invite students, parents or other interested people to set up a mini science lab inyour classroom
• Hold a class SCIENCE FAIR with each student displaying an experiment that needs to be performed in class
• Devise a series of experiments based on your particular science units
• Ask students to construct a small experiment that can fit into a sealable take-away container
• Hold a science competition to grow the largest crystal using sugar, Alum, borax or some other household substance