Myth busting science: using novelty to shift students’ conceptions

by Rachel Pillar, SASTA Education Officer & Science Teacher, Kangaroo Island Community Education

Who doesn’t love watching a vintage episode of Mythbusters? This popular 2000s show brought science to life for many admiring fans. No doubt many teachers (me included) succumbed to calls to ‘play an episode’ on a Friday afternoon; however, the value of Mythbusters was in more than just entertainment: it popularised applying elements of science to test and solve everyday problems.  As science teachers, our role in the classroom is analogous to a Mythbusters episode – perhaps minus some of the explosions! But it is also more complex. This article discusses how I use novelty to develop my students’ conceptual understandings and generate more “ah ha!” moments in my classroom.

The benefits of novelty for learning

Novelty has been my go-to strategy for engaging students in science lessons for years. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing my students eagerly walking into my classroom, looking around and wondering what they are going to learn today. My goal is to provide experiences that generate cognitive conflict, but in a way that intrigues students to know more and supports them to think that they came up with new, scientifically accurate understandings. The need for students to generate their own understandings is key to shifting their ideas. You can tell someone something ‘until the cows come home’, but they are more likely to believe you if they experience it for themselves!

One of my favourite examples of novelty is using a ‘Magic Pringles Tin’ as a slow-reveal to introduce energy concepts in Year 8 science. This demonstration combines questioning techniques with ‘the unexpected’ in a Predict-Reason-Observe-Explain (PROE) sequence.

Magic Pringles Tin Teaching Sequence

My ‘Magic Pringles Tin’ is made from a small pringles tin with a plastic lid, a large, thick rubber band, a 9 V battery, some masking tape, two small pieces of wire or paperclips and some card (to cover the end of the pringles tin). Please see Magic Rollback Can - Steve Spangler for the method.

This activity can be done as a slow-reveal PROE. It’s best used at the start of a unit to engage students and generate excitement, suspense, curiosity, questions and predictions.

1. Show students the tin when they walk into the classroom “this is my magic pringles tin, I wonder what’s going to happen when I roll it along the table?” Make sure you don’t show students that the tin wobbles (due to the suspended weight inside) and don’t let them touch or handle the tin at this stage. This helps build anticipation.
2. Ask students to share/write down what they think will happen when you roll the tin along the table. Walk around the class while they do this and give time for the suspense to build!
3. Ask students to share their initial ideas and elucidate their reasoning “what made you think this?”
4. Ask “would you like to see what happens when I roll the tin?” Carefully roll the tin along a bench so that all students can see. You might like to trial this before the lesson to make sure you reveal the least possible information about what might have been done to the tin!
5. Don’t let students handle the tin yet, even though they’re likely to make loud exclamations and really want to find out what’s going on! Tell them that they will be allowed to look inside at the end.
6. Ask students to describe what they observed. They can also do a think-pair-share, or just share what they observed and why they think it’s happening at this point. Ask “who has an idea about what’s going on?” or “I wonder why…”.
7. Choose a volunteer to handle the tin but not open it. Ask the volunteer to describe what they notice for the rest of the class. You can then choose another volunteer to do the same and roll the tin along the table. You might like to let a couple more students do this (or as many students as you like!) and then get students to make new predictions about what they think is happening. Notice when students use scientifically accurate language, such as ‘energy’, ‘elastic’ and ‘kinetic’, and encourage them to do this. It will catch on.
8. Lastly, let one student open the tin and describe what they observe. Let other students see as well (tell them to handle the tin with care because it can break easily).

From this point you can ask the class to try and explain what was happening and/or ask questions they can use for further investigation (i.e. this could form the basis for a scientific inquiry). As a suggestion, their questions could relate to energy, or to the materials used to make the tin and their properties, or to reversible change. You could also follow the activity up with hands-on examples to show transformations between potential and kinetic energy (making wind-up toys cars is great for this: see Engineering Experiment: Cotton Reel Car - Fun Science UK).

The keys to success are:

• Scaffolding students just enough so they have an ‘ah ha’ moment!
• Allowing wait time to build suspense. Curiosity is key to creating the need to learn.
• Using effective questioning to elucidate a wide variety of students ideas and conceptions around energy.

Some other great examples of novelty-based activities include:

• Constructing tensegrity structures, where parts of the structure appear to float. Tensegrity structures can be used to teach forces. See Make a tensegrity structure : Fizzics Education.
• Using a Van De Graaff Generator to blow a candle flame via corona discharge, or repel aluminium pie tins in the shape of the electric field.
• Demonstrating reversible change or equilibrium principles using cobalt chloride The equilibrium between two coloured cobalt species | Demonstration | RSC Education.
• Demonstrating the properties of water such as heat capacity (heating a balloon containing water vs a balloon without) and molecular polarity (using an electrostatically charged rod to deflect a thin stream of water flowing from a tap or burette).

Regardless of the activity, I encourage you to try incorporating novelty-based activities into your teaching to challenge and develop your students’ thinking. After all, many of science’s most important discoveries began with something new, surprising, or difficult to explain!