Students from 15 schools across the South West joined the Great Science Share on Tuesday, hosted at Bath Spa University, which celebrates children’s science questions and investigations.
The event, held at the University’s Newton Park campus on Tuesday 19th June, saw 100 pupils take part in a STEM challenge – which included making gliders, steady hand games and filters for dirty water – and a table top science fair, where they had the chance to present science investigations they’ve carried out in their classrooms.
The investigations included making marble runs, catapults, scribble bots, hovercrafts, testing the strength of eggs and Formula 1 margarine tubs.
The Bath Spa Great Science Share is part of a national campaign, led by Manchester University in collaboration with BBC Terrific Scientific, which aims to inspire young people from across the UK and overseas to share their science learning with new audiences.
The event also provided a platform to share outcomes from two Bath Spa research projects: Teacher Assessment in Primary Science (TAPS) and Thinking Doing Talking Science.
The TAPS project has worked with 60 schools across England, Wales and Northern Ireland over the past five years to develop resources that support teachers in teaching and assessing practical primary science – there have been 68,0000 downloads of the TAPS resources so far.
The Thinking Doing Talking Science project is a randomised control trial looking at the impact of developing higher order thinking skills.
Sarah Earle, Senior Lecturer in Primary PGCE Science and TAPS project lead, said: “This is the first time Bath Spa University has been involved in the Great Science Share and it’s already proved a huge success.
“The event was designed to support science in many ways – for pupils to demonstrate their own scientific investigations, for project teachers to share the activities which they had developed and for new teachers to find out about innovative teaching methods which will inspire the next generation.”
More than 150 schools and 30,000 children nationwide and overseas took part in 25 Great Science Share satellite events.
Now in its third year, after launching in 2016 as part of Manchester’s year as European Capital of Science, it was pioneered, and is run, by Dr Lynne Bianchi, Director of the University’s Science &Engineering Education Research and Innovation Hub (SEERIH).
Dr Bianchi explained: “This campaign is different because it places children’s voices at the heart of the experience – it’s their time to ask their questions, demonstrate their investigations and explain how they think scientifically.
“To see this grow year-on-year just shows how many people share our belief that curiosity and questions are what science needs to be more about.”
The TAPS project is funded by the Primary Science Teaching Trust (PSTT) and based at Bath Spa University’s Institute for Education.
It aims to develop support for valid, reliable and manageable teacher assessment in science, which can have a positive impact on children’s learning.
