Week 3 - Term 3 Field Session

Super Scientists - Week 3 Field Session [12^th August; 9am-10am] Summary

Topic: Recording our topic in situ

The plan for todays session was to get straight back into our discovery at Tye Park, building on our knowledge gained from last term and look at what skills we need to have when we are behaving as scientists.  It was great having Mrs McKinlay on board and with Rhonda [Sharne's mum] who is now an integral part of the group. We completed a quick review of our safety rules – then we got straight into it.

We discussed the idea of having a project topic – something each student has or will choose for the term – what are they interested in and what is most exciting thing to look at. We said no one could choose crabs as their study topic. We also talked about how do we look in a scientific way? Ask lots of questions about what wee see and what we are looking at. Why??? What do you notice about this area? What do like? What do you not like? What do you find most interesting or intriguing?

To get the students back in to the way of thinking scientifically, we brought out 3 types of magnifying equipment, we explained how to use each piece of equipment to look and study things close up. Take turns using these items. Show students how to look at something close up, standing still and taking our time – noticing small things

measuring things

·      Magnifying bug viewers [clear box with a magnifying lid]

·      Standard magnifying glass

·      Large sheet magnifier

The group was divided into 3 and all the student had an opportunity to use the equipment. Students took turns using these items. Students learnt how to look at something close up, standing still and taking our time – noticing small things. We headed straight for the creek and the mud, Austin and Sharne got stuck – they all love this experience and Sharne especially was keen to get into the Mangroves. Robbie and Jack wanted to explore into the creek. I collected a mud crab in the bug viewer and we watched the crab. We re-grouped and discussed using the 50cm ruler and 50meter measuring tape – the different ways we measure and cm’s and meters. The 3 groups went off again but this time measuring and recording their measurement – 1 group measured the diameter of trees. Sharne, Molly and Ngawairua all went to the mangroves we measured leaves and the height of the trees.  All the students got into this activity, having a “task’ focused them rather than just wandering around.

We finished off by getting each student to say into the i-pad what they wanted to study further. Stand still and listen, feel, what topic or thing calls to you and you want to investigate further? How can you measure or record your project topic? – think about what equipment you might need to investigate your topic further? – we tried to get the students to think about a question that could be answered in a simple way.

To extend these ideas further in class or at home, students can think about how we can record in other ways

·      Over time – use a watch and remember our worm experiment

·      Tide changes – does an animal behave different at low or high tide? And also time of day – night versus day

·      The length, height or width or an animal or plant – which is the tallest or shortest?

·      Remember the different habitats we looked at? Creek, sand bank, mud flat, mangrove – we can measure these areas in meters and look if they change with the seasons or longer through the years

·      Behaviour of an animal - watching and waiting

Further questions;

what are we thinking about? What did we find that was really interesting and we want to investigate more? – write down 2 questions or 2 topics or things that we want to learn more about.