Alisha Ahmed (Y9): Exploring scientific skills
This term in science, our topic was scientific skills. This unit covered essential skills in science such as citing sources, conducting and presenting research, planning experiments, and effectively executing practicals. Over the course of this term, we have been working through our scientific skills workbook, this would lead up to us planning our own investigation and carrying out our own practical in small groups in either biology, chemistry or physics.
Once we chose our topic, we learned how to accurately research to find credible, reliable information and properly cite/reference our sources. This led us to start planning our investigation on our chosen topic, neutralisation in chemistry. After conducting adequate research, we created a title for our project and identified the variables. We also wrote a detailed method, one that ensured our experiment could be repeated accurately. Then, we identified the risks and hazards we could come across. Next, we conducted the experiment after learning how to work safely with acids and apparatus. Our experiment went smoothly, and we successfully neutralised the acid, providing us with the expected results. The last step was to summarise and present our findings in a presentation to our peers.
Overall, this term was definitely different from the usual science topics. I enjoyed that it was more hands-on and practical, it let us use the scientific skills we've learned over the past few years and understand why they are so important in science. We also learnt how to work together as a team which built on our communication skills, this is important not only in science but also in other subjects and life in general. I also liked how each lesson taught us about different careers and further education into science. It was exciting to work on our own project and I think it also emulated real life scientific research, giving us a glimpse into how science is used in the real world.
Alisha Ahmed (Y9)
Science subject prefect