The Science Lab at Home

“I noted a significant preference to conduct physical experiments with materials found at home rather than simulators.”

The time young people spend in front of a screen, whether on a computer, cell phone, or other devices, has increased due to the pandemic confinement. Interactions and socialization with classmates, friends, or family have changed and are now done online through social media or technological platforms. Consequently, there are many distractors during an online class. In a way, it is easy to understand why the attention span in an online class is much shorter. However, by varying the stimuli of a virtual practice in physics, we can better capture the students’ attention as they experience learning in a fun way.

Science laboratories are useful for transferring phenomena that occur in nature to a controlled medium. There are many online labs and simulators on the internet that are helpful to explain some natural phenomena and that substitute well for face-to-face laboratory practices. However, from my experience doing a series of activities with my students, I noted a significant preference to conduct physical experiments with materials found at home rather than simulators. In this article, I share the results of my experience.

“It was the class I enjoyed the most. The experiments were very cool, and my mom always listened to the class with me. She liked it very much too.”

Young people need to experiment to learn new things or reinforce those already learned, which is why not being able to attend the school laboratory hinders their learning. Therefore, the idea arose to adapt the course’s practice activities and move the laboratory to the home environment. The Prepa Tec students taking the first semester of the Fundamentals of Life course on the Morelia campus (August-December 2020) had this laboratory experience using materials typically found in the home. Sometimes they had to use alternative materials, but the primary objective was to change the stimulus for learning and motivate them to “get away” from daily computer activities for at least a little while.

The students completed five laboratory experiments, one of them pre-designed in the course for that semester. The first practice was to become familiar with using the optical microscope. To do that, I used the simulator that already came preloaded to contrast the students’ opinion about this with the four subsequent experiential practices. A brief description of each activity in the order performed follows:

• Practice 1. Use of the compound or optical microscope. This practice aims to know and use an optical microscope with a simulator from the University of Delaware. Students learned to focus on a sample and change lens to observe it with various magnification increases and then submit a team report. The resource used: the online simulator.

• Practice 2. Identify the steps of the Scientific Method. With the oxidation of an apple, students identified the scientific method’s steps, beginning with observation. They placed three apple slices, one soaked with lemon, one covered with plastic, and the other exposed to air. Their report annotated their observations, formed a hypothesis, analyzed their results, and arrived at a group conclusion. Materials: three slices of apple, three plates, a plastic bag, and a lemon.

• Practice 3. Transport of cell membranes (osmosis). Three potatoes were used, two of them raw and one cooked, partially submerged in water, each with a hole at the top. Salt was placed into these perforations to observe the cells’ dehydration due to the phenomenon of osmosis. The students observed that this did not happen with the raw potato, and they had to discuss this and reach conclusions. This practice also reinforced the scientific method. Materials used: three potatoes, three plates, water, and salt.

• Practice 4. DNA extraction from fruit. To extract DNA from the cell nuclei of strawberries or bananas, students had to put into practice their previous knowledge about the structure of the cell membrane to identify that, consisting mainly of lipids; they could be easily broken down with FRET detergent, thus, enabling the extraction of DNA from the nuclei to observe their size and consistency. Materials: strawberries or banana, alcohol, FRET detergent, two glasses, a spoon, water, salt, and a coffee filter or bandage gauze.

• Practice 5. Cellular breathing. Two simple experiments were conducted. First, the students obtained a bottle with warm water, sugar, and yeast. They put a balloon in the bottle’s mouth, which inflated due to the CO2  produced by the fermentation. In a second bottle, they placed vinegar and baking soda, and a balloon in the mouth to observe the reaction with the release of CO2. They compared the results of both experiments, discussed the products, and arrived at their conclusions. Materials: baking soda, vinegar (apple, white, or any kind), sugar, yeast, two empty 600ml water or soda bottles, and two balloons (or plastic food storage bags).

Each practice was performed two times per week:

• Monday to Wednesday.  Each student was required to conduct their experiment at home, individually, when they deemed most appropriate during these days.

• Thursday to Friday.  Students met with their teams and presented their results; they discussed, shared information, and organized the report.

The team reports consisted of two parts:

• Part 1: Each team member added their experiment photographs to the report and their observations, which they recorded under each photo. Four photographs were requested from each member, and in at least one of them, the student should appear with their experiment. The photographs had to be of some precise moment specified in the practice format; for example, a photograph of preparing the experiment, mixing the alcohol and detergent, etc., depending on the practice topic.

• Part 2: The students answered a series of questions regarding the practice topic collaboratively and annotated their group and individual conclusions. Only one report about each practice was delivered per team.

At the end of the semester, I applied a Google Forms survey to the students who took the subject. Seventy-seven students out of a total of 102 from four different classes responded. The results were as follows:

“It was a lot of fun doing the experiments. My brother loved to do them with me and even asked me to explain why some things happened. It was very entertaining and exciting.”

In conclusion, taking the science laboratory into the home was to students’ liking because they did different academic activities, got away from the computer a little, prepared the materials they were going to use, performed the experiment, or took pictures throughout the process. It is worth mentioning that the students repeated the experiment several times to observe what happened or improve their results in some cases. Besides, even with simple homemade materials, these practices help students reinforce knowledge and better understand the studied phenomena. In some cases, siblings and parents were also involved in preparing for the practice and performing it.

I invite you to do activities in your courses that allow students to distance themselves for a while from online academic activities and, if possible, also interact with other members of their family to promote their integral development.

About the author

María del Pilar Ponce Cincire (maria.ponce@tec.mx ) is a biologist and teacher in Education experienced in counseling and educational development. She is a full-time professor at PrepaTec, Campus Morelia. She teaches the subjects of Fundamentals of Life, Health and Society, and Science and Technology of the XXI century.

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

María del Pilar Ponce Cincire

Share

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0