Why did you decide to participate in Fysiktävlingen?
It is an excellent educational cooperation between the university and schools, which creates young Science enthusiasts and specially for the subject Physics. It is very inspiring for me as a teacher and gives a new insight into academic teaching.
Fysiktävlingen is an exciting fun filled day for school students where they not only compete in teams to demonstrate experiments on Physics but learn from the pedagogical demonstrations at Vetenskapens Hus. The most popular of them being the one in which students get to eat the biscuits at -153C, pulled out from liquid nitrogen!
The excitement does not end here, it rises with the Physics show. This year’s highlights were the ‘infrared photography’ and classic ‘van de graaf’ experiment. The tour through the finest laboratories leaves students with a lifetime inspiration for Science!
How did the pupils prepare for the competition?
The best way to prepare is to divide the class into small groups and let each group choose a Physics concept from Lgr11 (year 4-6), for example, light, sound, forces, universe or a classic concept that fascinates them. They can work in the classroom with the help of teacher to turn their ideas into reality. It happens in November every year, so there is a good time to prepare after schools reopen in August. My students were so excited that they chose to work during break time also.
What did you think about the day of the competition at Fysikum?
The event was very well planned and organised with breaks and activities. The itinerary was shared with the teachers well before and it was easy to reach the University campus taking bus 61. Once we reached the campus, everything else was taken care of.
Would you recommend Fysiktävlingen to other teachers?
I would highly recommend teachers to participate with their teams at Fysiktävlingen, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. It is a global approach to learning outside the classroom and brings together different schools and children of the same age group. If you are still in a dilemma to participate, I can affirm from 13 years of my experience as an educationist that it is totally worth trying! I am very positive and so will be you!
