Have you ever tried to demonstrate an experiment with children on Zoom? In April, I participated in a community engagement program about doing an experiment with children. I designed two experiments about static electricity and free fall with other volunteers for a month. I have learned a lot in the program.

 

In March, I designed experiments with other volunteers on Zoom. Our leader Chris was friendly. He shared his past experiences about doing experiments with children and even helped us revise the PowerPoint. Our target group was students from K1 to P3, so we had to look for simple experiments for them to conduct on YouTube. Although I shared many videos about doing experiments with little kids, most of them were not suitable at all because I did not consider safety problems. For instance, if I carried out an experiment about a solution and chemical reaction, they might drink the dangerous chemicals. Suddenly, I found a fascinating experiment video about static electricity. When children rubbed a straw, some shredded paper was stuck to the straw. I immediately shared it with my group members because I thought it was safe and easy for kids to conduct. They all agreed with my ideas, and they also added that we could provide them with rulers, which was an alternative to straws. We also designed an experiment about free fall, apart from static electricity. We chose a template of a little parachute. After that, we tried to demonstrate these experiments to other volunteers.

 

Apart from designing the experiments, we also had to prepare questions for children to learn more about the daily application of static electricity and free fall. If I were asked to choose the most challenging part of the activity, I would say “asking children some questions” was the most challenging. We did not know whether children could thoroughly understand the two concepts, so it was difficult for us to think of some questions. When we had done all the preparation, we were confident that the activity would go smoothly. We had planned the rundown of the activity. First, we would introduce ourselves to the children and tell them to follow some rules. Then, children would do experiments by themselves with the help of our demonstrations. After the experiments, we would say to them the concepts (static electricity and free fall) applied in the experiments. In the end, we would ask them questions about the concepts.

 

On 9 April, I demonstrated the experiments on Zoom with my partner Mary. Some children could not catch up with some steps, so I had to re-do those steps patiently and ensure that all eight children could see the results. It was a bit hard for me to see the children’s progress because some did not set up their cameras properly. Some even turned off their cameras due to unstable Internet connections. Fortunately, most of them were accompanied by their family so they could ask for immediate help easily. When it came to the question parts, I found them excited. Some even shouted out the answers when Mary was reading out the questions.

 

I felt a huge sense of accomplishment after this volunteering activity. I realized that carrying out activity was always easier said than done. We had to step into children’s shoes and design the experiments. We needed to act as a teacher to teach them how to carry out the experiments during the activity. I had never been a teacher before, so this volunteering activity was an excellent opportunity for me to gain hands-on teaching experience. The most satisfying thing about teaching was the children’s smiles. When they succeeded in doing the experiments, they could not stop grinning. I believed that the activity did not only help children understand some scientific concepts and helped me understand how to design an activity for children.