The main idea with the wood science workshops is to increase the interest for research and natural sciences among children in their third and fourth grade as well as unmasking misunderstandings about the use of wood. We want to realize these goals by introducing children into the structure of the environmental friendly building material wood and showing how wood is used in its diverse forms and applications. During the workshop, we go into the topics of wood in our everyday environment, water transport and wood protection, paper and recycling, mechanics and construction as well as bioenergy with an introduction into wood chemistry. In order to impart these topics, different techniques and background information from different scientific fields are necessary. By actively involving the children into solving technical problems, they get also acquainted with task oriented scientific work.
For developing a generally accessible workshop for afternoon activity schools and other interested persons, the workshop setup will go through different test phases in close cooperation with three different activity schools in the greater area of Oslo, Norway. Within these test phases, we test the workshop setup, the material for the children as well as the background material for the activity school teachers. Based on their feedback and our observations we edit and revise the workshop material. It is the aim of this paper to report about the development of a wood science workshop for kids and the experiences with the preliminary workshop held at the three different schools.
Keywords: children, education, natural sciences
Authors
Zimmer K.
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Ås, Norway
Larnøy E.
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Ås, Norway
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