Science Eureka sabbatical reflections

Yes, finally. I had been bidding for this sabbatical since last year, and it seems to be quite popular. I wanted to expand my Science knowledge, and hopefully the extra things learnt in this sabbatical can go a long way in my Science learning, not merely for tests. The period of five days was still rather short, but I still had deep impressions of my fun time in this sabbatical. I finally can get to expose to the use of more scientific apparatus and even conduct more experiments on myself. Most of our activities were experiments with occasionally some teachings in between by our Sec 4 seniors. The coverage of the course ranged from biology, chemistry and physics. Most of our activities were rather hands-on, and we learnt mostly from the results of the experiments itself. I just savour that kind of experience. This should be the purpose and process of learning Science! Some of us even mixed up the chemicals in the lab for fun, though it is dangerous to do so. But the very process of exploring Science is indeed irresistible. At the final day of the course , we were even given a mini-quiz on the things that we have learnt over the past few days, most of which consisted of acids in Chemistry. Not too bad, I got 18/20. We were also tasked to give a presentation in our groups on some Science topics that we are supposed to research on, and if I remembered correctly, I did something on bond energy and catalysts. I think I still got the powerpoint so I shall share it. There were also times of frustration during the course, for example, when we got the wrong results for our experiment or when we made a mess of it. I must say that you need some extent of patience and perseverance to go through them. Most importantly, I can get to experience the intuitive learning of Science. I truly felt that Science was not totally about memorisation and that there are different approaches of learning it. Experiments are indeed effective, as you can see the results for yourself, instead of just reading the contents on books. You could thus also remember them more vividly and easily. I think I would definitely join more of such meaningful, fruitful and enriching programs, and hope the school will organise more of them too.

Sabbatical PPT: http://www.mediafire.com/file/fb6uzooh7b23j5y/Presentation1.pptx