Nova Trial at Cromer PS
The use of the Nova 5000 during our It’s electrifying science unit was a resounding success. The students loved using the sensors to record and analyse information. I initially introduced the sensors in a ‘play’ situation. This was a huge success in engaging the students. They held light sensors to everything they could find that gave off light. They were fascinated by the graphing process and initited their own comparisons of the graphs and discussed various theories to explain the differences.
I introduced the students with the voltage sensor when they had experimented with building their own electrical circuits. The students were already highly engaged in building various circuits but what the Nova’s enhanced was their deeper knowledge and understanding. Student’s continually changed and added to their circuits all the while measuring and recording the voltage. The dicussions that arose from the graphs were interesting and enlightening in some cases, and added to their understanding of the topic.
The students became adept at managing the Nova’s within our classroom. They set up recharge stations and a team made sure they were recharged after every use and then put away. Others were responsible in copying data from the Nova’s to the computer. We connected the Nova to our interactive white board. This was excellent for demonstration purposes and to explain to the students how to use the Mulilab software. In regards to using the other software on the Nova’s and to manage the files they created they pretty much were able to work that out for themselves or asked their peers to show them.
On reflection, I was unable to give justice to the teaching of the unit due to the time constraints I experienced during Term 4. This term was a poor choice as we had too many interruptions, assessments, end of year events and commitments that severely reduced the time I could allocate to such a comprehensive ‘hands on’ unit. In future I would move the teaching of a unit that required a lot of time on practical experimentation as opposed to research to an earlier term.
I initially introduced my class to the Nova’s for use in our science lessons but both my students and I quickly found other uses for them apart from during science including spelling activities, drawing and word processing (using the keyboard).
