Browsing by Subject "työtapa"

Objectives. According to international and national research children’s skills in natural sciences are declining. Decreasing interest in these branches of science has also raised concern. LUMA center of the University of Helsinki aims to meet these challenges by enhancing co-operation between schools and informal learning environments. BioPop is part of the LUMA center and it organises summer science camps for children in primary school. The goal of these science camps is to increase children’s interest especially in biology. Interest is known to have a positive effect on learning and capabilities. That is why development of teaching to enhance children’s interest is important. The aim of this study was to investigate which kind of activities and teaching methods children considered interesting, and did their gender or age have an influence on this. Methods. BioPop collected a questionnaire at the science camps during summer of 2015. This questionnaire was meant to investigate children’s interest in different activities and it was answered by 135 children. Activities were compared by their means. Because measured interest in activities was not normally distributed, the connection between gender and interest was examined by Mann-Whitney U-test. The same test was used to examine connection between age groups (7–9-year-olds and 10–12-year-olds) and interest. Results and conclusions. Mostly all campers were really interested in every activity. Statistically significant differences between genders were found in five activities: making nametags and camp rules, plant identification, gathering and pressing, catching invertebrates on the ground and in the water, examination of fingerprints and doing fish-cards and painting an aquatic ecosystem. Working outdoors in natural environments and visual arts were emphasized in these acitivities. It was interesting that girls considered all of these activities more interesting than boys. There were no significant differences in interest between two age groups. All in all campers found biology’s experimental methods the most interesting. Figuring out what kind of teaching methods are related to children’s interest gives schools important knowledge on how to develop teaching. BioPop also receives feedback on the success of its work.