Published November 01, 2021 23:43
Discovery Lab engages kids in science concepts through an interactive 8-week curriculum that connects science to real world contexts.
“Since we have started the Discovery Lab program, we have been working on looking at the science of an activity and not just making something. The kids have stopped to actually think and observe what is happening. When we performed the surface tension demonstration there was lots of excitement watching the soap move the colours around. One of our kids asked what happens if we stirred the colours into the milk before we added the dish soap so we tried that out and it didn’t work as well so we talked about why that happened. As time has gone on the kids have come up with really thoughtful hypotheses.”
The program focuses on hands-on experiments, increases understanding of scientific approaches, and creates opportunities for problem solving, idea refinement, and iterative learning.
“With week one the kids had made Oobleck before and were exited to make it again. This time they were very mindful to make notes and think about whether it was a sold or a liquid. Most of them said both. They even wanted to compared Oobleck to water because they knew it was a liquid to see how it differed. They also asked if the amount of water added to Oobleck would change if it was a liquid or a solid.”
During the pandemic, science programs were one of the ways we were able to get our members interested in doing online programing because it was more hands on then the other virtual programing we had been doing. It allowed the kids to build, think and learn in ways they weren’t used to. We have just moved back to in-person programing and have been running the Discovery Lab program as one of our weekly offerings. We have hooked up our projector to allow us to more easily share the information with the group. The benefit of being in-person is that we can be more hands on with helping students. Also being in person allows us to better facilitate working in groups and sharing ideas. The kids are loving discovery labs, solving the clues and getting to work hands on with science. They can’t wait for our next week!