Details of the Initiative
This is the seventh year that we have held Science Workshops for Children by University Students at the regional children’s center as a program for elementary school and university students to learn from each other.
Aiming to create a “wonder-fun” science workshop where children can learn valuable lessons through fun and hands-on experience, and where they can be amazed and filled with curiosity using familiar objects as subject matter, university students are involved in all aspects of the workshop, including planning, prototyping, theme selection, content determination, preparation, and performance day. The faculty member supervises whether there are any errors in the content.
Trying, deciding, and acting for the sake of someone else’s smile, and seeing the direct results of your actions, is an invaluable learning experience for university students. Here are some student voices:
Due to COVID-19, the first online science workshop was held and there were many things that went wrong. The most difficult part was that we couldn’t teach the children face to face. In particular, the paper dragonfly was a difficult experiment that even college students would have difficulty with, since it had many delicate parts. I think it would have been better to think about the year of the elementary school students, the level of experiments, and whether the experiments could be taught online. There were many difficulties, such as talking in online meetings and preparing materials for the children, but when I saw the children experimenting with smiles on the screen, I felt that it was all worth it. I was very happy that the children were enjoying the experiment that I planned and managed. I hope children are interested in science through this science experiment workshop. I am glad that I could be involved in this experiment workshop.
