Hi, my name is Valerie and I still remember a sun fact I learned in 3rd Class – the sun is 93 million miles away! I was so struck by the colossal number. Pupils always have such fun with huge numbers and space provides endless opportunities to engage with them.
An enquiry based activity I have done with junior classes is the Ice Melting experiment which explores turning solids into liquids and allows the pupils to hypothesise. This experiment works well either as a whole class or in groups if you have another adult to hand!
I did this in groups and had the following materials/equipment: bowl of ice cubes, salt, sugar, water, access to the staffroom fridge and our heat source was the windowsill on a (rare) very sunny day in June.
The pupils discussed in advance which method they thought would melt the ice fastest. They picked a method in their groups, made their predictions and then carried out their experiment, recording the time taken for the ice to melt. The times varied widely and the experiment was revisited throughout the day.
The pupils evaluated their hypotheses afterwards and compared their ice with other groups, leading to further discussions with their classmates, thinking about alternative scenarios, e.g. what if we used more/less ice in each bowl, bigger/smaller cubes, a different heat source, etc.
They loved the practical aspect of it, seeing their own results as well as the results in other groups.