Versione Italiana  Questionnarie
on the 7 strands

Scientific
activities

Geometrical
activities
Electricity and batteries Light, colours and vision

Shape and dimensions in living beings

Studying motion
in real time

DON’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES!

The experience

In March 2006 our school organized an interactive exhibition on the light phenomena, open for ten days to the territory.

  • Eleven classes, guided by seven teachers, worked for two months for choosing, preparing, checking, adjusting the exhibits.
    After an introductory lesson, aimed at presenting the initiative, exploring the pupils' prior knowledge and experiences about the topic and collecting their suggestions, each class was divided in teams of three/four. Each team was responsible for a particular experiment, studied and realized it and, guided by the teacher, tried to interpret the results. Finally each team presented their experiment and findings to the classmates.
  • Nine classes of the nearest primary school visited the exhibition and, guided by our pupils, played with mirrors, lights, colours, lenses... and began to reflect on the physical laws underlying the observed phenomena.

    The teachers: M. Barbara, R. Bettiol, S. Boccardo, G. BoccalonL. Dotto, I. Pellegrini, F. Runello, S.Turra

The path

  • The main characteristics of the light: it travels straight, reflection, refraction
  • The colours of the light: how to compose and separate them
  • The colours of the matter: how to compose and separate them
  • Perceptions: optical illusions, persistence of the image on the retina
  • Optical instruments: convergent and divergent lenses, prisms, glass container filled with water.

The choice of the experiments was based on two priorities:

  • the effectiveness, in order to understand the basic concepts about light and vision
  • the impressiveness, in order to capture the pupils’ and visitors’ attention.

Why an exhibition?

Because…

  • the awareness of the importance of the event makes pupils feel themselves responsible for respecting the deadline, for well organizing the exhibits…
  • the success of the event gives pupils a reward for their efforts

To sum up, to improve motivation, because it strongly influences learning

The two educational strategies underlying the initiative (according to a constructivist approach):

Learning by doing

Environments which inspire and stimulate active participation promote learning and foster the construction of knowledge about rules and laws because:

  • enable pupils to have first-hand experience of scientific phenomena
  • develop curiosity, awe, interest to know more
  • give pupils the time to discover things on their own and follow their own pace, use their prior knowledge and experiences in a wider way
  • develop self-control and sense of responsibility

Cooperative work and peer teaching

Explain to others is an effective way to reach a best comprehension of the topic because:
  • expressing thoughts verbally helps to clarify ideas
  • assuming the role of expert promotes self-confidence and increases motivation for further learning.
  • shy pupils are encouraged to express their thoughts
  • finding out the right way for explaining a phenomenon force pupils to reflect on their knowledge, reorganize and deepen it.
The outcomes (pupils’ interviews)

The questions:

What did we like more?What didn’t we like?What did we learn?Your emotions...

The answers:

... I really enjoyed teaching the children and miss school hours, I’ve learnt a lot about the light but most of all I’ve learnt how to communicate effectively

... I’ve learnt a lot about the light and, as a person, I’ve learnt to be more self-confident and responsible.

... I liked all about the exhibition: the experiments, the many things I learnt from my classmates. I taught others, and in this way I was learning, because when the pupils were asking me something, I tried to find out the answer by myself

… At the beginning the children didn’t understand me very well, because my explanations were too difficult for them, but then I find how to capture their attention, by asking questions, involving them in the experiments…

... The children were attracted by the experiment I was showing them and paid attention at my explanations… this fact made me happy, I felt fulfilled.

... I’ve seen how it is hard for a teacher to teach …


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