Future scientists will suffer if schools cut practical science experiments

Practical work has always been at the heart of science teaching at the school and, even though I am a historian myself, I have to say that I cannot imagine it being done in any other way. To this day I remember the practical work I undertook in school, in particular in physics, and have fond memories of sending ticker tape trollies down ramps to measure acceleration.

Today the internet is everywhere and it could be argued that children could watch as many experiments as they want on YouTube and other more specialist sites, like the Khan Academy.

Whilst the latter is a fantastic resource, I am certain that students should be doing practicals and that there is no better way of learning some aspects of science.

It is also invaluable preparation for those students who go on to become scientists, for whom the lab may well be their main place of work.

However, what does our new head of science think?

I agree that the move to linear exams, taken at the end of Y11, is a good change as the science GCSE's has gotten to a stage where students could sit a GCSE in 4 separate exam sessions (excluding the Investigative Skills Assessment).

Splitting it up has given the students a better chance of gaining high marks and leaves room for any necessary resists. No sane teacher was going to pass up this opportunity, but all these exam sessions did fragment the teaching and steal important classroom time.

But at Polam Hall I can honestly say that we have never succumbed to reducing the practicals and switching entirely to textbook learning.

However, this has meant that syllabuses have been finished in the nick of time and things could become stressful when exam time loomed, so under the proposed reforms more time for learning through investigation will be great.

Our love for experiments at Polam Hall stems from the fact that they leave a visual imprint that aids learning, plus the fact that we agree with the article when it talks about the importance of students learning practical skills.

A BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23864721) shows a picture of a well known experiment, obtaining the cooling curve of stearic acid which is a white waxy substance at room temperature.

It involves laboriously and accurately recording the temperature of the wax as it cools from a liquid into a solid. If you carry out the experiment carefully you should see a flat section in the curve, where the temperature remains constant as the liquid solidifies.

If the students do not take the measurements required, they miss the flat section, so it is a real test of skill. When I carry out the experiment with students, I no longer make them sit with alcohol thermometers, as these are not used in the world of work, but equip them with a temperature probe and data logger.

I think setting up the experiment this way takes even more skill, and over time, the skills scientists have changed, but they still need practise.

The biology, chemistry and physics cupboards at Polam Hall are full of old and new experimental equipment and we like to think that we offer a good mix of both.

It is important that the students see the traditional experiments like limewater going cloudy and convection tubes, but we cannot resist using fluorescent beads and setting fire to empty tea bags when students find these experiments on You Tube.

The changes in the GCSE exams should leave more time for pupil learning by experimentation, but students are still not rewarded for good practical skills.

The controlled assessment, Investigative Skills Assignment, is a bit of a misnomer as the majority of the marks come from two written examination papers and no marks are awarded for a student’s skill at taking reliable and accurate results.

I appreciate that this is a very difficult thing to do and that past attempts to do this by teacher assessment have lead to very small variations between the most and least able students.

Finally, experiments are fun! Regardless of what I have said above, this is a pretty good reason to fill our science lessons with experiments, old and new.