Mini Science Display: Prediction & Results

Some more posters for our front room. 😂

I decided to start planting the seeds for scientific investigations by getting the girls used to the words "prediction" and "results". One piece of coloured card/laminated paper per word:

PREDICTION: What do you think will happen? Why? What knowledge do you already have?

RESULTS: What happened? What does it mean? How does it compare to your prediction?

Underneath, I cut the sides off two plastic wallets and stuck them to the mini-posters. The idea being the headings and questions will stay displayed while the content of our current investigation/experiment can slot into the appropriate wallet.

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So to fit in with our topic on plants/trees, I took them to Birmingham Botanical Gardens (where we have a membership pass - we definitely make the most of it throughout the year, especially in the warmer months!) where we wandered around a bit looking at the different kinds of trees, discussing whether they were deciduous or evergreen and why. This was in September, but ideally you'd want to do this earlier before the colours of the leaves begin to change. The criteria we were focusing on were the leaf shape (flat, needles, spiky, etc.) and colour (light green, turning yellow/orange, dark green, shiny, etc.) When we got to the playground I directed them to look at two particular groups of trees: one group behind the roundabout /see-saw and the other behind the swings. We took some photos and looked at the leaves more closely so they could decide what kind of trees they thought they were, more independently since we'd already had plenty of discussion walking around the gardens.

When we got home, I printed out the photos onto A4 so we could recap what we did the next day. I explained to them what a prediction was and guided them in writing one by using the questions on the poster as prompts.

A few months later, in November when it was clear the season had changed and the trees would definitely be different were they deciduous, we went back to the Botanical Gardens and looked at the same trees in the playground. This was at the end of our trees topic so they were able to do this pretty independently, saying which group was deciduous and which was evergreen and why. We took some more pictures together and spent the rest of the time playing.

Again, when we got home I printed out the photos onto another sheet and went through the questions on the Results poster with them so we could write up our results together. These mini-posters will then stay on display until the next time we do an experiment, so serve as a nice reminder.

It wasn't really a proper experiment per se, as there was no real method, but I thought the activity served as a good introduction into the scientific process.