Students take risks and respond to different situations through adventure play-based learning as they explore the possibilities of combining various substances. Through construction learning, students use logic and reasoning skills to pre-plan, design and solve problems, experimenting with materials along the way.
Students are involved in creating their own slime product as a base for developing their inquiry design and communication skills.
The teacher circulates, observes and asks students about their procedure, making anecdotal records of these findings. The final inquiry report is also used as a formative assessment. Specific look fors include student ability to isolate and test a single variable and ability to articulate how the variable change may have had an impact on their outcome.
Science and Technology
Students have previously investigated polymers (slime) by using materials from a kit. Their focus was on precision of measurement, careful counting and meticulous adherence to steps in an outlined procedure.
As the kit materials are easily duplicated using white glue, borax and distilled water, the experiment can be repeated many times to reinforce report-writing skills. By expanding into exploration of variables, students continued to be highly invested in the process. The class consensus was to use a student made cross-linker solution instead of the one in the kit. The cross-linker transforms glue and water into a slimy polymer substance. “We want to know if our own solution will work as well as the kits,” and, “We want to know if we can add our own choice of colour to the slime.” At this point, I interjected that these were examples of variables and suggested that we test one at a time and find out what happens.
First, we tried slime with student made cross- linker. Students were closely supervised while measuring borax, a powder, into distilled water.
Each investigative team is quickly engaged in measuring and stirring glue and water. They work together, counting out drops of cross linker that they now add to their mixture. “I’m counting the drops. I’ve now added 20 and it looks like this, Jomai, write that down! We’re going to try it now to see if it bounces, then we’ll add more drops.” Moving on to another group, “Look, look! When I add more drops, look what it does! It makes a ball but breaks apart. I’m going to add more cross linker!” “ Don’t forget to count and record the number of drops that you add,” I remind them. Yet another group, one with very serious, procedure-minded girls explains, “We used this spoon and we measured carefully. We tested it at ten and now we are at 20 drops. We’re going to see what happens. The more drops we use, the drier it gets.” I now have five groups of students measuring, mixing, testing and playing with their product.
My job is to circulate, ask questions and take notes. The students are highly involved in the play and discovery aspect of the experience. I ask, “What materials did you use? What was your procedure-what did you do when you made this? What are your observations? What’s happening?” I also take notes for assessment and group debriefing purposes. The class wants to know when we can try it again and just play with lots of variables.
During the activity, students requested time to, “just play.” This translated into the chance to add multiple ingredients, glitter, paint, sand, etc., to their slime formula. I was able to use this playtime to deconstruct the concept of an hypothesis. Letting the students invent and observe, within safety parameters, motivated them to work with experiment design. They were better able to understand the purpose of identifying a specific question or idea to test.
Scaffolding was provided as needed. Many students in this class struggle with writing detailed observations. In addition to guiding individual students and groups, it helped to insert large group clarification sessions into the activity. During these sessions, I was able to provide examples, model procedure and elicit oral responses from students. A projector was used to display examples that students could refer to when necessary. Students could also use computers and work with a partner to complete the report.
The target learning activity was completion of an inquiry report that outlined investigative procedure and observations. The hands-on component of the activity and the opportunity to work with partners lent itself to kinesthetic, social, auditory and visual learning styles. Those who preferred to work alone and reflect independently on the process were able to do so.
Although the learning target was a written report, the active component was included to encourage student motivation (Rieber, 2001). By providing students with the opportunity to pace, explore and to some degree author their subject matter (Elkind, 2008), the purpose of the activity and related concepts were immediate and relevant to their experience.
Consideration was given to student learning preferences. Some wanted to work independently, others with partners, others in small groups. Groups were established based on my observations of compatible personalities.
