My SMART target for science is as follows:
S- Research a scientist that is likely to be on TV that the children will watch.
M-Know what science they are interested in and what they have found out and link this to a lesson. Possibly write a lesson plan for this topic.
A-Watch videos and read up on the scientist and experiments they carry out.
R- Link to the Curriculum for Excellence E&O’s. Also see if it is linked to anything in the news or outside community.
T-Before I go on placement.
One scientist that is on children’s TV programmes is Steve Backshall. Steve is interested in the world and what creatures and living things are out there. This means you could focus the lesson on unusual animals, that you don’t see in this country. To prepare for this lesson I would make sure I have watched some of his programmes such as Deadly 60 as then you can begin to explain what this sort of scientist does. Also mini clips of these shows may be worth watching in the lesson to get the children excited and enthused about the topic. This topic would be sorted into the biodiversity and interdependence organiser. I think that if we looked at where these unusual animals live we could think about why they live the. This would link to the SCN 2-01a and SCN 3-01a depending on the detail you went into, considering the children’s stage.
Although they may not be considered a scientist you could possibly use Neil Armstrong. Although, he was an aerospace engineer and therefore you could consider with your class what they would need to develop a good spacecraft. They could then have other curriculum subjects come into this such as art and design and technologies as they could design and make the spacecraft. When designing these however the children will need to know what is different between space and here on earth in order to make these.
Overall I feel if we used a scientist the children were familiar with or had heard of to begin a topic, then they may be more enthusiastic as they know that people actually use science in real life and that they can find out about things just like these scientists.
