I feel that science is often a subject which is limited a lot in primary school. You leave primary 7, possibly having only done 2 or 3 experiments a year if that to having science about 3 times a week and getting to do an experiment every week. I used to enjoy science in secondary school. I enjoyed the written part of it anyway, I just wasn’t that interested in the experiment aspect. It just came with too much fear.

“Your hair might catch fire”

“Don’t turn the gas on until you have the flame on a match stick”

The rules worried me. This was made worse when the gas chamber broke half way through a science experiment and we all had to evacuate the building. Of course people started getting dramatic.

“My head hurts”

“I feel sick”

“I’m going to faint”

That was enough for me. I’ll just stick to the theory, well that was my aim. But instead the teachers insisted that I was good at science. I got my Silver crest award and my Go4set. I went to the Big Bang Competition twice and represented my school three times at different chemistry events including a chemistry event at Dundee University when I was in Second Year. Therefore when it came to picking our subjects in third year, many teachers got a shock when I chose Physics and then all other social subjects.

I feel that this fear could have been avoided if I had done more experiments at an early age. I was quite mature when I went to high school and would worry about things such as injuring myself more than I would have in primary school. Primary school children love getting involved and have no fear, which isn’t always a good thing. Many children are visual learners and find it easier to understand things when they see them. Therefore I find science experiments an effective way to do this.