This lab manual provides structure for teachers who wish to engage students in hands-on interactive learning but also provides support for teachers who are more comfortable with inquiry based learning. If you are a teacher who is taking their first “dive” into hands-on Science, the background material is designed to provide enough structure to help support the organisation of the lab and its materials. Most of the materials are commonly found in local supermarkets and department stores at a nominal cost. A few materials, like scales and hand microscopes can be found on-line. The lab sheets can be given to students so they follow step by step, or they can be told a general structure to follow.

The critical portion of any lab is to have a thorough discussion of the results and their thinking after the experiment is completed. It is suggested that you take as much time as the experiment to have this discussion with students. The real learning occurs not from the hands-on experiment, but from a deep discussion of the experiment, while making connections to the concept they are learning. For this reason, it is suggested that the students do the experiment FIRST, and then have the students learn the concepts. They will have a better understanding of the concept if they first conduct an experiment, gain the experience, and then discuss a new concept.

Even without a strong Science background, get into the habit of asking questions. The process of asking questions and being inquisitive will generate more excitement for students and will engage them in a deeper way of learning Science. “I don’t know” is as important to learning as having all the answers. Together you can learn Science and discover the major ideas that Scientists’ research.

If you are an experienced teacher, the Teacher Guided Questions to Inquiry are designed to provide prompts for students. These questions are not intended to be assessment questions, but ones that will engage students in the general direction of the benchmark. The teacher may select one or two, but not all of them, to have students start on an open inquiry approach to learning. The students will engage in their own experiment, create their own procedures, and make conclusions from their data. For this reason, there are no answers to those questions. They are open ended and can be used to formulate interesting experiments for advanced students. The slight variation in some of the questions in each of the labs is designed to provide a sufficient number of prompts at various levels of Blooms Taxonomy to engage students.

Throughout the year, encourage questioning, student dialogue, and the scientific process. There is no one exact scientific method as is often suggested. The process of learning about the world and universe, drawing conclusions from facts, and building these facts into strong scientific theories is the work of Science. Science is always growing, stretching, and expanding its knowledge base. It is about challenging well supported ideas to discover weakness. This is exactly what students should be encouraged to do! And in the end, Science is not something to study, it is something to do!