How to think, Not what to think: Science Project for 6th grade - Moon Revolution

In 2014, Indonesia’s Minister of Education who served us around that time, Anies Baswedan, said that our Educational system is in danger. The data showed 75% Indonesia’s school are bellow the education standards. Indonesia took the 40^th place out of 40 countries that participated in the education quality mapping (read the article by Aswandi here). It’s caused by many factors, such as the facility, teachers quality, curriculum, the policy, and many more. They make such a perfect bond; when one flaw can destroy the rest.

The basic problem in this field is there are still a lot of the teachers teach in the subjects different with their educational background. It happens mostly in elementary school. Which is for me elementary is the basic level to start and maintain the kids mind set (read my writing ‘Science for elementary, do we need to take it seriously?’). in my opinion, i‘m pretty sure that it will be hard for a teacher with social educational background to teach science or math. 

As the result,  most of the students in Indonesia aren’t trained to be critical, not used to solve problems, short thinking, have less idea, and so on. They used to accept the materials that the teachers have given to them as the way it is and without knowing how could it be happened, why should we learn about it, and what’s the benefit of the knowledge.  This occurs because whether the teachers or the students were too attach to the textbook, which is we already know, there’s almost no book that can explain any process in science phenomenon clearly. We know for certain, in science we can not let the students think abstractly, they need to feel it with all of their senses, by seeing it, hearing it, and feel it by doing it. One of the most powerful method that we can use to obtain the best result is Experiential Learning. In one of UNESCO’s modules, Teaching and Learning for Sustainable Future that written by Bernard Cox, Margaret Calder and John Fien said:

“Experiential learning engages students in critical thinking, problem solving and decision making in contexts that are personally relevant to them. This approach to learning also involves making opportunities for debriefing and consolidation of ideas and skills through feedback, reflection, and the application of the ideas and skills to new situations.” (more info click here)

So here, to give at least a simple example of it, i’m about to tell one of mine and my students science project guided by the Experimential Learning to develop the students curiosity over their world, their nature, and their own lives.

In the 6^th grade, we were learning about the universe; Planets, stars, and the moon. We were not just learn about how many planets do we have in our solar system (if you want to know one of my ways to memorize it, click here), but also what’s the connection among them all. During the lesson, they showed a great response whenever I related the materials into their daily life. I went to their level of logic so that they can understand it well.

One of our interesting topic was the moon revolution, how the moon’s existence effects the earth, why should we learn about it, and how important this knowledge is. I taught them this topic first before we started the project so later on they will thinking while doing it, it’s kind of looking for evidence project. I’ll share the work sheet.

Download the project in Bahasa (Pergerakan Bumi dan Bulan: Revolusi Bulan) 

You can see there, I was asking the kids to observe the moon phase for a month. In the lesson, I already told them that not only our earth movements relies on this moon revolution, but also by knowing the cycles it will help the fishermen to predict how many fish they will get related to the moon’s effect to the tides and lights. And not to mention, for Indonesia which known for its biggest muslims population in the world, something that related to their religion is always an interesting topic to discuss. So I told the kids, in Islam, they really can’t live without the moon because they follow lunar calendar called Hijrah. Suhel Farooq Khan in Muslims and The Moon said:

“Muslims follow the lunar cycles carefully because of several time-bound religious obligations like Sawm (Fasting) in the month of Ramadan or Hajj (Pilgrimage to the Ka'bah) in the month of Dhul Hijjah.”

With this kind of knowledge, I really hope the kids will start to think critically by knowing the phenomenon; the mechanism, the process, and the importance of something existence in their lives. So that in the future they will be a great thinker, to always think ‘How’ not just ‘What’. Not just accept, but try to look for the evidence first.

Wait for our update in January of 2017, we will see what the kids get after one month of the observation.