Setting Science in Context

Gayle Pook and Joy Parvin ran a primary practical session on Day 5 of the Nanjing visit.

The session on Friday 21st September about teaching science within a context that children understand proved very popular.

There were several animated discussions to consider some 'real life' contexts that pupils would be familiar with in which to set science investigations.Firstly packaging was considered as a starting point. The visitors produced beautiful mind maps which showed all the strands that children could investigate - the environmental footprint of waste packaging was a prominent strand.

Gayle set a challenge involving foam production! After looking at CIEC's new web resource Science of Healthy Skin the visitors were provided with basic equipment and asked to measure the foam they produced. Great fun was had and the conclusion was that shaking detergent and water produced much better foam than whisking!