Q: What is the importance of hands-on learning in the sciences?
A: “There’s nothing better than project-based learning, because they get a very solid, concrete foundation and have a really high retention rate [for the material],” says Lynn Eckert, science instructor at Montessori High School. “As long as I can allow them the independence to have an open-ended problem, they’re attracted, they’re excited and that’s all you really need for them to learn. They have to have a solid foundation in theory. So I do the lecture and I keep it short. I allow the kids to take their passion and design a problem that they can honestly solve. We spend a lot of time learning, designing and building stuff. So the theory, the principle and the equations all come together when we do projects.”
