"Digestive, rich tea, hobnobs or ginger nuts... which type of biscuit would you like to be?"
This was the question set by Sheffield teacher Emma Wildman for her class of Year 5 children to encourage them to work collaboratively and on their own initiative to develop their own activities and investigations.
Fun experiments with biscuit dunking, inspired by Emma’s involvement in the Smarter Schools initiative, helped them to discover for themselves how scientific enquiry can be entertaining, exciting & exuberant ... not to mention, edible!
Emma's story…
"With the intention of developing my class' key skills of collaboration and self management, I designed a cross curricular mini-project based around Ann Pilling's The Big Biscuit.
The children were to design and complete an investigation to find out about the dunkability of some of the nation's favourite biscuits. After discussing the soggy dilemmas faced by Terence Bott throughout the story, the class were grouped and then provided with a box of potential equipment. This was as far as my input went!
Nervous and apprehensive as a recently qualified teacher, I was aware of the risk I was taking in giving the children freedom and ownership of a scientific enquiry. Still, I am pleased to say this risk paid off and I could observe the children working together using impressive collaborative skills.
Seeing my class operating in this way was something I'd never allowed myself the opportunity to experience before. Taking on the role of facilitator rather than instructor in the classroom gave me the time to question the children and find out much more about their skills and understanding of key skills, scientific enquiry and fair testing.
The self-belief which gave me the confidence to devise this project came as a result of my journey as a 'science hub teacher' in the Smarter Schools initiative."
Emma Wildman
Monteney Primary School
Sheffield