In today’s culture young children are surrounded with an overabundance of distractions. It is quite a challenge to get students excited about anything that does not have an immediate reward. Demonstrations can be of great use in many fields, but the scientific field in particular can greatly benefit from the motivation and excitement that can come with the performance of demonstrations. The implementation of demonstrations in the classroom allow students to have a concrete (to some extent) example of what they are learning and often allow for inquiry learning in which the student uses what they already know as a foundation to help discover new ideas. This study was performed in an attempt to generate excitement about science, investigate the effects of performing demonstrations on student interest in science, and to teach basic chemical concepts. Students were given a questionnaire about their general interest in the field of science prior to the demonstrations. The questionnaire was divided into two sections. Questions in the first section were design to measure the student’s interest in science. The second section contained questions designed to measure the student’s knowledge of scientific facts, which were covered during the presentations. The demonstrations were performed for the students and the questionnaire was administered immediately following the performance and one week after the performance. Data from the questionnaires was collected and analyzed. The results will be presented and discussed.

Impact of chemical demonstrations on student interest and learning in science

249th National Meeting (2015)

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