Two lecturers at Waterford Institute of Technology had successwith a pilot programme that encourages primary school pupils totake an interest in science, reports Dick Ahlstrom
THE limited efforts underway in secondary schools to tempt more students into the sciences are misplaced. The effort has to take place much earlier, in primary school, according to a pilot study.
Two Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) lecturers took it upon themselves to put together a week-long science education programme targeted at primary school pupils. The goal was to reverse the dramatic trend against the sciences seen at Leaving and third-level, according to Eoin Gill, engineering lecturer at WIT.
With WIT chemistry lecturer Sheila Donegan, Gill assembled a package of experiments and demonstrations covering physics, chemistry and engineering. They tried it out on 16 sixth-class pupils from the nearby St Saviour's School in Ballybeg and quickly realised that they were on to something good.
"It exceeded our expectations," he says. "Our aim was not to teach them but to spark an interest."
The pair have extensive experience with this type of activity, having done something similar at secondary school level for the past three or four years, from about the time that Science Week Ireland began. Gill's bias was engineering, but he knew that if something wasn't done, engineering would decline with the sciences.
Their efforts at secondary level, met with mixed results however. While there was a good response from students and teachers, too many of the older pupils had already turned their faces against the sciences - it was already too late. "We decided that if we wanted to stimulate numbers [entering science] rather than just interest, we would have to reach kids in primary school," he says.
Gill and Donegan went back to the drawing board and put together a package suited to primary pupils, "things that had science behind them", says Gill. This included magnetism, static electricity, motors and circuits, surface tension, gases and pressure.
The principal at St Saviour's, Mary Fitzgerald, was enthusiastic and so too were the parents. This was important because it was decided to deliver the programme at the WIT after school hours, between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Pupils were taken over by minders and then given a bite to eat before the work began.
Despite being outside normal school time, the students were enthusiastic about the material. "We thought it might be a struggle for us to keep them interested, but it wasn't," says Gill. "We had a lot of things lined up, but they really jumped at everything we did. We got through quite a bit."
They were also a bit nervous about how the teachers might respond to outsiders being involved with their curriculum, but they were all "really enthusiastic".
There was genuine content in the material, says Gill. "It was real science, it wasn't just theatrical stuff. We were surprised ourselves at how receptive they were."
There was a bit of a party at the end, and certs were distributed. "On the last day, they brought in their parents and teachers and did demonstrations and explained what they were about," says Gill.
The programme worked so well that they plan to increase activity for the next academic year. "Our conclusion was that this worked. There is a great return to be got working with primary kids. There is that natural curiosity. We would plan to roll this out to as many schools in the area as we can get interested in it."
This suggests that the way to stem the decline in science graduates is to start early and act now. "I really think the time for studies and surveys is over," Gill says.
The college met all running expenses, "but it was surprisingly cheap" to do. Giving the programme in the WIT rather than the local school was also an advantage because the children were gaining access to an otherwise remote institution. "That was an extra bonus."
Gill and Donegan are already working on next year's programme and "we have big plans for Science Week in the autumn", Gill says. He is also encouraging other WIT academics to participate.