Science Post #3

I was very disappointed with the Bubble experiment yesterday at Haw River. I had had some reservations about the experiment from when we did it in class last week. I was having trouble justifying the use of this experiment in a classroom and specifically in second grade. I struggled to find a connection between this experiment and other things they are learning in second grade. It seemed like teaching them about surface tension was a superfluous task since the NCSCOS for second grade focuses on animals, weather, states of matter, and sound. I guess this could technically fall into states of matter, but I felt like it didn't connect to other things they might be learning. This may also come from me having no idea what they are studying in their particular classroom, but one lesson on surface tension interspersed with whatever else that might be learning seems random and disjointed.
I do, however, know that second graders love bubbles and that we are trying to engage the students and help instill a sense of excitement for learning science. I appreciated the way the bubble experiment took advantage of something they enjoy and attempted to teach them a scientific idea. After we tried this lesson last week, I asked around to see how my classmates were going to attempt to make this lesson meaningful to the students and what they expected them to take away. Many of them explained that they wanted to focus more on inquiry and prediction making than the actual scientific reasoning behind the experiment. I decided that I would try this method as well, since I couldn't be sure that the students would be able to connect to the "surface tension" idea. This is where I was most disappointed. I did not see the curiosity that I was hoping to see, and it was difficult to get them to make predictions. This could have been more related to behavior management than the actual experiment, but they were so ready to do the experiment that they didn't really care to slow down and listen to directions or think about what was going to happen. I'm afraid that once the experiment was over, they just left a huge mess for us to clean up and then forgot about it entirely.
I think what I learned most from this experiment, regardless of whether I found it to be an appropriate lesson or not, is that helping the students to take away something from science may be more difficult than I thought. Giving them a chance to inquire and explore and experiment does not mean that they get to do it all the way they want to. It has to be within the parameters that the teacher outlines for them. It is really a tricky way for them to do exactly what you want them to while making them believe they are learning for themselves. It is going to take a lot more practice for me to know how to set up those boundaries for them, and I am glad that I got to experience this Bubble experiment debacle. I think that I will be much more prepared for the next time around.