In order to trigger students' thinking, this teacher posed an overarching inquiry question (which lacks a conclusive theory) to them and tasked them with formulating their own theories about the question.
Nutrition in Man
Enzymes
Model of Cells
Cells and DNA
Acids and Alkalis
Environment
Food Matters
Adaptations
Matter - Liquids
Magnets
Heat Energy
Scientific Inquiry
Students were interested in the inquiry question: Do gummy bears float in water?
Joyce first allowed students to make their conjectures and support it with reasons. Subsequently, some gummy bears were observed to float while others sank, leading to students’ ideas coming thick and fast about the structure, components and weight of the gummy bear as reasons to justify their observations.
Menstruation
Instead of menstruating every month, why is the uterine lining (endometrium) not sustained continuously throughout the life of a woman from puberty to menopause?
The theory formulated by Crystal, the teacher, is that it would require a lot of energy to sustain the endometrium continuously, and from an evolutionary point of view, this is not very efficient for the body.
In order to guide students towards an explanation for this question, Crystal provided guiding questions: Why do women undergo menstruation? What is the uterine lining used for? What causes the uterine lining to grow and thicken? Why can the uterus be a good environment for bacteria to grow? How can it affect the woman when microbes grow in the uterus?
Here is the KF view generated:
Nutrition in Humans
Is faeces a type of excretion?
The question led students to think about what excretion is. They came up with many other questions such as "Is faeces edible and is urine drinkable?" Students went on to find out the components of urine and faeces and whether they contained any useful nutrients that could be utilised by the human body.
Enzymes
Students started off the topic on enzymes with an experiment of yeast and hydrogen peroxide, but without knowing the contents of the experiment.
The enzyme catalayse in yeast cells catalysed the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen gas, resulting in bubbles formed. Students were allowed to smell and hold the test-tube, and using their observations, they were asked to provide a hypothesis of the contents in the test-tube.
Transport in Humans
Students watched a video of snake venom being extracted from a snake.
A drop of the venom was injected into a sample of human blood and the blood sample very quickly solidified into a jelly-like form. The students' curiosity was piqued as they discussed what happened to the blood sample on the KF.
Adaptations
Hazel showed her class a video clip on flying fish in the wild, and how they escaped from their predators.
After the video clip, she started the discussion in KF with the following question: Putting our knowledge together - What did you learn from the video?
Another teacher, Irene, showed a video clip on different kinds of wildlife in Singapore. She then proceeded to ask them to think about the features of the animals shown to them that would help them adapt to their environment for survival.
Matter
Gerlynn got students to classify items into three categories: matter, non-matter and not sure. She then asked them why they categorised some items as matter and not others.
Their initial theories of matter were:
- “matter is anything that has mass and occupies space” (definition from the textbook)
- “matter is something that you can touch and see”
- “matter has weight”
- “you can see the three types of matter, solid, liquid and gas”
Materials
Elizabeth and Fadil split the students into groups and gave them various objects to classify. The students were encouraged to come to a consensus as a group, and if there were other individual alternative views, to put those on hold.
The classification was varied, with some classifying according to the materials used while others classified according to the function of the objects (e.g.: household item, cutlery)
