Motivating primary children's interest in science and space: Is there a better way?
Project Diary
- Eighty-five classes of primary school children were divided into two similar groups for delivery of the same space science concepts. One received a story around human exploration and the other the traditional data centred lesson. Measuring the considerable enthusiasm and motivation of the pupils to continue the work in their own time showed no discernible difference between either approach
Feb 2013
Motivating Primary children’s interest in Science and Space: is there a better way?”, is at the heart of a University of Bradford–AZSTT project involving over 40 primary schools. The project has developed methods to follow the motivation and enthusiasm of young learners and is using them to evaluate different ways of delivering science education and teacher CPD.
Jan 2012
Project Summary
This is a Key Stage 2/3 Transition cluster project based around the Bradford Robotic Telescope and is a continuation of a project funded in 2008/2009. The telescope is a robot operating in the Canary Islands and is one component of an extensive e-learning site for science. This project will run CPD programmes to introduce primary school teachers and their classes to the Bradford Robotic Telescope system on; http://schools.telescope.org/. It will provide a continuing resource for teachers and will monitor the use of the resource in the days, weeks and months following a CPD event. It records the activity of the user providing the researcher with details of how and when the user has interacted with the system.