Make the question precise.
Define the place, material, time period and comparison. Decide which observations would be relevant.
The Lab
A good question.
A careful way to investigate.
The Lab is the Academy’s proposed space for practical enquiry: examining what can be observed, measured, compared and responsibly explained.
Enquiry, made tangible
Start with what
you can find out.
The Lab connects a question with a method. A class might examine a published water record, follow a clean material through possible uses or compare two explanations of the same environmental event.
The useful result is more than an answer. It is an account of how the answer was reached, what the method could not establish and what would be needed to go further.
Look after the evidence.
Record sources, units, dates and limitations. A graph becomes useful when we understand what it measures.
Earn the conclusion.
Distinguish a finding from a hypothesis. Keep the explanation open to correction when better evidence appears.
The Lab is a teaching concept. Activities will use existing information, safe observation and clean demonstration materials, under educator supervision. Hazardous waste handling and dangerous-site investigation are outside the children’s learning programme.