Keystone Magazine Learning the Keystone Way 2015-2016 EN | Page 29

grade 10 student Winston Jiang.
Self-planning pushes students
to understand a subject in
greater depth than if they only
follow a textbook and carry out
experiments as per instructions.
“I actually understand what I am
doing during the experiment
that I planned myself,” exclaims
Victoria. Her classmate Ashley
Fang agrees: “I definitely have
a better understanding of this
topic after planning the experi-
ment because I had to actually
use the knowledge I learned,
and figure everything out step
by step. Although my partner
and I finished the planning
quickly, the actual experiment
didn’t go well. Our approach
caused a large error when the
deviation of the angle occurs.
We had to solve the problem,
and adjust the plan, which also
improves my ability of solving
problems and experimenting.”
But some science problems take
more than an experiment to
solve or understand, like one is-
sue students in grade 7 tried to
resolve: Are food webs resilient
enough to survive extinction of
an individual species due to cli-
mate change? To find the answer
to this question, these students
debated for and against the is-
sue. They not only used empirical
evidence – the famous dinosaur
example was cited – to sup-
port their arguments, but also
substantiated their stance with
logic, such as what would hap-
pen if bees were to disappear
all together. “This approach not
only tests the students’ knowl-
edge and understanding of the
topic – in this case Ecology – but
also leads them to dig deeper,
reflect on the impacts of sci-
ence,” explains middle and high
school science teacher, Amanda
Narkiewicz. More interestingly, it
is classmates who judge the ar-
guments, as they wait their turn
to debate. The grade 7 students
were excited about this way of
learning Science, as they walked
out of their classroom still filled
with adrenaline. “I have not done
this before!” and “This is so excit-
ing!” said a couple of students,
while others smiled from ear to
ear having made sense of Sci-
ence.
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