Preparing for Practicals in the Science Lab

Year 4 entered into a hands-on immersive practical this week in the science lab. Before setting off on the investigation, we all contributed to a risk assessment discussion to ensure we knew how to be safe and what we would do if and accident happened. 

For every risk we thought of, we had to work out the chance and severity of each (on a scale of 1-5 – with the higher the number representing a higher risk). Examples included ‘spilling water on the floor’ (chance 2, severity 2); ‘breaking glass’ (chance 1, severity 2/3); ‘accidentally eating the apple’ (chance 1; severity 1) and ‘getting a splinter’ (chance 1, severity 1/2).

We discussed what we should do to reduce the chance of these risks happening – which included keeping the bowls and all equipment in the practical trays; using all equipment for the intended purpose and never eating anything we are using in an investigation or experiment!

We made predictions of whether things would sink or float and had a very good discussion about how density and shape affect the ability for items to float – including a lively debate of whether a paper clip actually floats if it is floating upon a piece of paper!

The Year 4s were incredibly professional in their approach to the practical and thanks to our careful planning, not a drop of water was spilled, no apples were dropped or eaten and not a splinter embedded!

We had a fantastic time discovering if our predictions were correct and we recorded the results carefully in our books. Biggest surprise of the surprise of the day was the floating teddy-bear as we were all sure that would sink!

Well done Year 4 – a fantastic start to the scientific year!