Posted on: October 15th 2015 | Category:
This term I have had the pleasure of teaching science to the children in Forms 3 and 5. Both groups have been looking in depth at living things. In Form 3, the children have been developing their investigation skills in the context of plants. They designed and carried out their own fair test to see how the life process of growth was affected by varying the amounts of water or light. The children made some insightful conclusions and came up with pertinent questions to enquire into further. Here are a few of the conclusions we came up with:
Harris: "The one in the dark grew taller and it is yellow because it didn't get any sunlight, so it grew yellow not green, but that means it is not as healthy as the one in the light."
Holly: "The plant that had no water didn't grow as much as the plant with water. Just like humans plants need water to grow."
Throughout this topic the children impressed me with their knowledge of plants, their understanding of the relationship between plants and the environment and their enthusiasm to find out more.
In Form 5 we also spent some time learning about plants, focusing on the reproductive cycle of flowering plants. As part of this the children selected seeds to germinate and grow in our garden (in the area adjacent to the main door). Over the last few weeks they have been nurturing the plants and we have successfully grown crops of radishes and salad leaves. Herbs and lettuces have been growing more slowly and we are hoping we can protect them as the weather continues to change throughout autumn.
Over the final few weeks of the unit the children made connections between the reproduction of plants and reproduction in different animal classes. They have spent time researching how animals reproduce, if they nurture their offspring and the way this is related to the number of offspring they have. The students have been really engaged throughout the topic and are developing better enquiry skills.
Mr Jowett
