Can an experiment conceived, carried out, and reported in kids-speak with pencil-coloured figures and hand-written tables by school children aged 8 to 10 years get published in a highly rated international journal following a peer-reviewing process? Twenty-seven schoolchildren from the Blackawton Primary School in Devon, U.K., have proved this is possible — if a simple but novel scientific question raised is answered in a scientific way. Their paper was published in the Royal Society's Biology Letters journal (“Blackawton bees,” by P.S. Blackawton et al : >http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/site/misc/BlackawtonBees.xhtml ). The objective was to test if bumblebees, once trained, could remember the visual pattern based on colour and choose the correct holes representing sugar water. The bees were first trained using a grid containing 16 holes in a 4x4 array, with the inner four holes containing sugar water and set to blue and the outer 12 holes containing salt water and set to yellow, and vice versa . They were then tested using the same and also a new pattern of colours, and retested using a new colour. The finding was that bumble-bees can use a “combination of colour and spatial relationships in deciding which colour of flower to forage from.” Considering that our understanding of how bees perceive coloured patterns and scenes is inadequate, this inspiring outcome has shown that schoolchildren guided by gifted teachers can think and carry out experiments like any hard-wired scientist. An accompanying commentary (“Blackawton bees: commentary on Blackawton, P.S. et al .” by Laurence T. Maloney and Natalie Hempel de Ibarra) notes that the experiments were “modest in scope but cleverly and correctly designed.”
For these kids, doing science changed their perception of the subject. Science also became “cool and fun.” This refreshing approach turns the spotlight on the best methods of teaching science. The rote learning system adopted by most schools in India, even classroom study combined with some laboratory work with pre-defined outcomes, does very little to stimulate curiosity and interest in science. Is that one of the reasons why out-of-the-box thinking that produces path-breaking science rarely comes out of Indian laboratories? The children at Blackawton had their gifted teacher, and R. Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist and co-author from University College, London, to guide them. Scientists from India's space and atomic energy departments and in some other places where serious science is done can take a leaf out of Blackawton's book and lead the way in engaging with school pupils and getting them to do real science.
