Section 2 : Transport

Theme: Making science practical

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this section, you will have:

  • used a demonstration practical as a stimulus to generate students’ questions;
  • used practical work to encourage students to observe carefully and to explain their observations;
  • supported students in groups to plan an investigation.

Introduction

Practical work is a really important part of being a scientist and can help students to learn. There are a lot of different types of practical work including demonstrations; investigations in which students plan, carry-out and analyse their own experiment and experiments designed to help students learn specific skills or understand scientific ideas. Gaining first hand experience of materials, organisms and processes can increase understanding and help students to remember what they have been taught. Shared experiences and real objects may also be helpful for students who find English difficult. All practical work requires careful planning and some improvisation.

In this unit the activities are all linked to the topic transport. They involve students taking part in a practical demonstration, a practical activity designed to illustrate theory in which they are required to make very careful observations and an open-ended practical investigation. Resource 1 has some general information about practical work and Resource 2 has some background information to the topic.

Resource 6: Examples of classification keys

1. Demonstrating transport in plants