-First, students work in groups and need to create a science project or interesting experiment or science board games. They can choose whatever topic that they are interested in such as baking soda and vinegar volcano, vegetable battery, water electrolysis and collect plant specimens.

-Then, students need to produce models or display boards to explain a concept, principle or a process.
-Teacher and peers can give comment or feedback.

Benefits of science fairs are:

1. Promote interest in Science and Technology among the younger generation.  

2. Encouraging scientific and technological creativity among students and inculcating a sense of pride in their talent.  

3. Providing exploratory experiences, encouraging creative thinking and promoting psychomotor skills among school students through self designed models or simple apparatus.  

4. Encouraging problem solving approaches and developing appropriate technologies. 

5. Improve communication skills. 

The first reason is that this real-world learning will increase students’ interest and motivation in learning. A field trip to a forest provides a new learning environment and offers an opportunity for students to learn something new that teachers cannot effectively teach in the classroom. For example, students can explore the forest ecosystem as well as the flora and fauna by practicing the skills of observing and recording.

Besides, this natural-based learning will enhance the information taught by a teacher because it provides a non-stressful learning environment for students. Moreover, a field trip to a forest allows the students to understand nature and love nature. Therefore, it will encourage the students to protect the plants and animals.

It provides good illustrations and experiential learning that is nearly identical to the real-world context. For example, I will conduct pendulum simulations in my science classroom to illustrate the effect of mass and length on the period of oscillation on the simple pendulum. Thus, students will be easier to understand by observing and linking the result of this activity with the theory/concept of energy. Besides, it can generate highly personalized interests since it is more realistic/ make sense of the natural and physical world.

The reason for conducting such activity is that it helps students to make connections between the real life situation with the science fact. This will make the lesson more attractive and relaxing but at the same time students can also learn. Moreover, some of the concepts in the movie might not be accurate, hence teachers can use this opportunity to correct the misconception to students. At the end of the lesson, I will ask students to summarise the lesson and share their reflection in groups.

An example of informal science learning that I would use in my classroom is watching movies/drama or discussing the scene from the movie. This is because I believe in this era, most people especially students really enjoy watching movies. For example, if I conduct physics class, maybe I will discuss some scenes from the series MacGyver. There are a lot of tricks and skills from this series that will be able to make students interested to learn science. Here I attach some scenes from that series, Enjoy 😊

For example, I will assign my student to work in a group and build a bridge prototype/model by using straws and tape. Then, the straw bridge will be tested by applying a weight load. In the process of designing the prototype/model, they will be discussing with each other and doing some research about the criteria and factors that have been considered by engineers when designing a bridge.  As a result, they can enhance their understanding about some physics concepts and apply it in daily life. 

Some of the other prototypes that can be made in science class are water rockets and parachutes. Making it a competition also can attract students’ attention to learn.

On the other hand, I will share the videos or movies with students which include the knowledge and application of science. I think that the learning process can take place when they have a great visual about the concept or ideas. 

The reason for conducting such activity is that it helps students to relate real life situation with the science fact. It is more suitable and comfortable to attract the student's attention on the topic learned so that they keep focusing and can see the way of the event happen in the real life. For example, the movie about Interstellar that tells a brief idea on how Theory of Relativity works if we can really get into the black hole because the event itself never happen in real life but the concept is there.

Informal Learning Activity: Let’s Vlog

1. Students are asked to make a ‘Day in the life’ vlog and film what they eat throughout the day (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks etc.). 

2. In their video, the students have to identify the different classes of food present in their meals (carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins, fibre, minerals, water etc.) and also the calorific value of the food (eg. show the food wrappers).

3. Ask the students to play their videos in class.

4. Discuss if the classes of food identified were accurate.

5. Discuss if the meals shown were balanced based on the calorie count, food pyramid and portion size.

6. Ask the students to share their opinions on how to plan and maintain a healthy diet based on their knowledge from the topic ‘Nutrition’. 

Explanation: This activity will allow students to understand the relevance of this topic in daily life and to understand how learning this information will be beneficial throughout their lives. It is also fun to do as students get to use their creativity to make the video. This activity is also manageable as it only requires students to have access to a smartphone, which is fairly common nowadays and does not require additional expense on their part. If this activity cannot be done face-to-face, it is also applicable in online classes, as students can also be asked to upload their videos to YouTube or any other social media platform and discuss the contents of each video via Google meet, Webex or Whatsapp. Overall, it is a fun activity that involves students seeing the value of science outside the classroom, while being affordable and simple to carry out, not requiring any additional cost or paperwork for the teacher or time and stress for the students. It also achieves the goal of educating students on how to have a healthy lifestyle.

 

These outdoor and community-based learning activities conducted in a science class is cost-effective, less planning and able to achieve the learning objectives. Such learning activities help generate students’ curiosity and make science class to be active and out of the box rather than the standard way of teaching and learning in class. In addition, these activities also build students’ community consciousness and develop essential skills to prepare them into the working world. Students are also able to discover their own passion or ambition through these informal science learning activities.