Report on Virtual Experiment Science

Year 4

Report on Teaching Science Using Virtual Experiment

LESSON PLAN

Topic: Plant and Animals

Sub topic: Habitat and Food chain

Objectives

1. Recognise there are different types of plants and animals in a local

environment.

2. Name some plants and animals and understand they require different

habitats to live.

3. Relate simple life processes to plants and animals found in a local

environment.

National Curriculum

Key Stage 2, Science, Sc2, 2e.

Resources

• Online activity: Plants and animals

• Secondary sources of information (reference books, CD-ROMs)

• Copies of Plants and animals worksheet

Teaching activities

Introduction

Ask the children to name some plants and animals found locally. Make two

headings on the whiteboard, Plants and Animals, and ask children to add their

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contribution to the correct place. What is different about plants and animals? What

is the same?

Activity

Select Plants and animals in the local environment from the KS2 Bitesize website.

Explain they are going to spot some wildlife. Ask the children to predict where an

animal might be found. Why there? Select a child to spot and click on the wildlife.

Click on each magnifying glass and read through the information. Explain any

unfamiliar words. Click on Sorter 1 and show the children how the plants and

animals can be sorted by where they were found. Complete this activity. Click on

Sorter 2 and explain the living thing has to be matched with where it came from.

Do all living things begin life in the same way? What did a bird look like at the

beginning of its life? Complete the activity. Form groups, each group will need a

computer. Select and explain the activity as above. Ask the children to find the oak

tree and click on it. Where was it? Tell the pupils they should remember where

each thing is found. When the children know what to do, let them complete the

rest of the experiment. Encourage them to read or listen to the information.

Plenary

What different types of wildlife were found in the park? Make a list on the

whiteboard. Choose one and ask the children to give some facts that they have

found out or knew already about the subject.

Extension

Have a selection of reference books or CD-ROMs available for the children to find

out more about local wildlife. Ask children to create a simple What Am I? quiz. The

quiz has to give as many clues about the plant or animal that the children are able

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to find out e.g. where they live, what their offspring are called, drawing part of

their body or complete the Worksheet.

Homework

Hand out copies of the Plants and animals worksheet. Remind the pupils of what

they did in the activity. Explain that the children must draw or write plants or

animals into the three different habitats.

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REPORT

On Saturday October 24th, I and my colleague Shahriah had

conducted a science lesson using virtual presentation. We had
chosen Plants and Animals as our topic; habitat and food chain for
our subtopics. Actually we had planned to conduct the lesson a
week ago due to unavoidable circumstances where the school had
problem with internet connections so we had to reschedule the
lesson.

The virtual presentation was conducted on Year 4 of fourteen

students from class 4C at Rimba II Primary school. We had only
picked 14 students with high and average abilities because the class
teacher wanted to prepare the rest of the students for their
upcoming Final Examination on the 9th of November, 2009.

We started the lesson with reciting the `doa’ with the students.
Students’ seating were arranged carefully so that they could view
the whiteboard and the IWB (interactive whiteboard) clearly.

Our lesson includes the set induction, content, activities and

assessment. Firstly, I began the lesson with set induction by asking
students to give some examples of Brunei’s local fruits followed by
the name of local animals. All contributions by students were noted
down on the board. Next, students were also asked to give the
similarities and differences between plants and animals. After the
discussion, the students were shown some pictures of local fruits
and animals using power point presentation. In my observation, all
pupils were very active during the discussion. They could answer
when they were asked questions I think it was because they had
studied the lesson earlier this year. Also, the students were very

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Year 4

interested when they were shown pictures using the power point
presentation.

Students reciting the `doa’

Seating arrangement

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Year 4

Teacher brainstorming ideas with the students

Ideas that were noted down on the whiteboard

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Year 4

Showing pictures using power point presentation

Picture of a crocodile

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Year 4

Picture of a goat

My colleague Shahriah continued the next part of the lesson which

was the content. As for the content and the assessment we had
used activities and assessment provided by the
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/living_things/plant
s_animals_environment/play.shtml. In this session, teacher showed
students examples of habitats and they were asked questions
during the lesson. Oral assessments were also given to check
students’ misconception by using the virtual activities. Students sat
and listen while teacher conducted the lesson using the visual
experiment.

Shahriah showing example of habitat

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Year 4

Student active in activity on habitat

Student active in activity on habitat

Next, Shahriah continued with ‘food chain’ and implemented similar

strategies to deliver the lesson. In my observation, I found out that
all students were very active during the lessons and activities at the
same time some students looked restless in the activities.

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Year 4

Introduction to food chain

Food Chain Lesson

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Year 4

Food Chain Lesson

Food Chain lesson

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Food Chain Lesson

Virtual activity on food chain

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Virtual activity used to check students’ understanding

In the last part of the lesson, students were divided into 7 groups of
two students to do the assessment. Worksheets were given and
discussion in pairs were allowed. During the activity, we played our
role by facilitating the students; showing them pictures of some
animals using http://www.google.com such as heron, wood louse,
desert and meadow.

Students doing the activity

Students doing the activity

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A picture of a heron

A picture of a woodlouse

Assessment given at the end of the lesson

Plants and animals
Read the questions below and underline the correct
answers.
Top of Form
eJxNUMlOw 0AM7

1. Which of these things are you NOT likely to find in a

park or garden?

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Year 4

An earthworm

An oak tree

A crab
2. Which of these animals is most likely to live in a pond?

A water spider

A caterpillar

An ant
3. Which of these is most likely to grow in woodland?

Algae

An oak tree

A cactus

4. A habitat is

an animal behaviour

a shop where animals go to buy things for their homes

a place where animals and plants live

5. Which collection of animals might you find in a seashore habitat?

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Zebras, lions and elephants

Owls, caterpillars, oak trees

Barnacles, seagulls, crabs

6. A frog is adapted to its pond habitat by

being brightly coloured

having webbed feet

growing into an adult frog

7. Why does a heron have a long sharp beak?

To catch fish

To look cool

To fly faster
8. Why do African elephants have big ears?

To keep cool

To hear better

To fly
9. Where would you expect to find a woodlouse?

In a hot, sunny place

In a dark, damp place

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In a dark, dry place

10. Which habitat does a rabbit live in?

Desert

Meadow

River
Bottom of Form

As for my conclusion, teaching students using virtual

presentation can be effective for delivering a lesson. The ideas or
concepts are presented in a very interesting and colorful ways
which helps to motivate students to learn. Also, Power point
presentation can help teachers to plan ahead of what they want to
teach in sequence and with the aid of animation it can attract
pupils’ interest during lesson. In the lesson, students were very
excited to see pictures and they looked very eager to see the next
picture on the next slide during the presentation (power point
presentation). On the other hand, surfing using

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http://www.google.com can be very useful to help teacher and

pupils search for pictures of habitat and animals that they do not
know; for example during the lesson the teacher used google to find
pictures of Barnacles, Heron, Woodlouse and Meadow.

There are also weaknesses in using the virtual experiments. For

example the `Habitat’ that is shown in the activity is not from our
local habitat which is only suitable for students in the United
Kingdom. In the future, if we were to conduct the same activity we
would have to find some local habitats to be shown to students so
that our students would be more aware of their local environment.
Besides that, the written assessment that we have given to
students provided by the website have very difficult terminologies
that our students were not used to for examples; Barnacles, Heron
and Woodlouse. As a suggestion teacher should modify the
assessment paper if they are interested to use the assessment
worksheet for example; use animals that students are familiar with
which can be found in our local environment. After marking the
assessment papers of the students we found out that many of the
groups of students got wrong answers for some questions. We feel
very disappointed that we could not do corrections with the
students as they are going to sit for their final examination in the
next 2 weeks.

In brief, our objectives were achieved in the session based on our

observation. However, we feel that the lesson could be more
effective if the students could make used of the computers in the
lab to carry out the activities. The pupils could learned more if the
students were able to manipulate the computers; which could help
in developing their skills in handling the computers.

Results of Assessment

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We had given the ten MCQ questions for assessing pupils

understanding of the lesson using virtual experiments on “Habitat”.

The results of the assessments the pupils according to the question

in sequence are as follows:

From the table:

• Question 2 has no wrong answers.

• Questions 4 and 10 have 1 wrong answer each.
• Questions 1,3,5,6 and 7 have 2 wrong answers.
• Questions 8 and 9 have 6 wrong answers.

Group Total
Que 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 correct
stion answers
1           4
2           8
3           6
4           7
5           7
6           6
7           8
Tota 46
l
The questions show variations in its difficulty level for each of the
pair of pupils. It is obvious that question 2 is the easiest question
and all the pupils got that question correct. However, for question 8
and 9 almost all the pupils find that question hard to answer, with
only group 3 were able to answer question 8 and only group 7 were
able to answer question 9.

The mean of difficulty for each question:

Question 1: 2/7 = 0.29
Question 2: 7/7 = 1.00
Question 3: 2/7 = 0.29
Question 4: 1/7 = 0.14

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Question 5: 2/7 = 0.29

Question 6: 2/7 = 0.29
Question 7: 2/7 = 0.29
Question 8: 6/7 = 0.86
Question 9: 6/7 = 0.86
Question 10: 1/7 = 0.14

The highest mean of 1.00 shows it is the easiest question among all
the questions with the lowest mean of 0.14 which is the hardest
question for the pupils to answer.

Strengths of the assessment

• The question provides options of answers, where they can

narrow down their answer down beyond the choices given.
• The question is simple and straightforward and pupils can
choose the answer without writing essay type answers that are
long and time consuming.
• Marking of the papers were easy and teachers just have to
look at the wrong and correct answer and grade it
immediately, without involving any thinking and reasoning to
why and how the pupils answer the questions.
• Since the assessments are done in pairs, pupils can discuss
among themselves and can be an advantage.

Weaknesses of the assessments

• Some of the questions ask about a general knowledge which is

not in the lesson content at all. Such as “Why does elephants
have big ears? The options of answers are confusing as well
where all answers can be considered the correct ones.
• The questions are subjective and objective questions might
help the pupils in explaining their answers and clarify teachers
on where they had done wrong.
• There are insufficient answers provided for each questions.
• There is a likelihood of pupils passing through chance.

Conclusion

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Year 4

In summary, by comparing the mean of difficulty for each of the

questions shows that question 2 was the easiest question and
question 9 was the most difficult for the pupils to answer. This is
proven by the number of wrong answers done by the pupils.
Furthermore the assessments prepared for the virtual experiment
lesson has its benefits and weaknesses. It is up to the teacher’s
wisdom to select the most suitable assessment according to the
pupils cognitive level and the lesson being taught to the pupils.

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