How to Teach Science With Posters

Science fair projects and other science activities require students to learn, comprehend and apply science concepts to the activity. In order for them to complete the activity you need to help your students to find the information that they need to understand what the activity demands. One way to do this is to decorate your classroom with educational science posters.

Educational science posters come in all shapes, sizes and themes. Some of these posters can be kept up all year long, while others can be exhibited during special modules. For example, a poster of the periodic table can be kept up all year long, while posters related to dinosaurs, the planets or weather science can be put up on the walls when you are teaching modules related to these subjects.

In order to teach science with posters you will need to understand the topics that you will be teaching. After you break down the module into concepts you can then select posters that will supplement the lessons that you have developed. For example, if you are teaching a lesson on molecules you can break down the module into the elements, the atom and molecular reactivity. You can then find science posters that will help you to teach each concept, such as a poster of the periodic table, a poster that diagrams a molecule or atom and a poster that demonstrates the various shells of an atom.

When you are developing your lesson plan you need to think about the props that you will need for your lectures and your learning activities. A good way to approach the integration of science posters into a lesson plan is to create a spreadsheet of all the science posters that you have at your disposal. Next outline the concepts that your lesson plan will be dealing with and then cross-reference the list with your spreadsheet. This will help you to identify the posters that relate to your lesson plan. Finally, insert poster names into your lesson plan that you can use during discussions and activities.

A good way to introduce your students to all of the science and educational posters found in your classroom is to have them complete a science scavenger hunt. For this activity you will need to develop a list of clues or questions that will lead your students around the room from poster to poster. For example, you can ask questions that can be answered by finding the right poster, such as what is the atomic number of hydrogen? This activity will not only help familiarize your students with the science posters in your classroom, but it will also introduce them to the concepts that they will be learning about during the school year.

Another fun activity is to use science posters to help students make predictions about something that will happen. In this “if A, then B” activity you will present your students with a printable that lists multiple cause and effect relationships with the effect left blank. Your students will need to use the posters found within your classroom to determine the most logical effect for the causes that you have listed. This activity can be used to test student comprehension of the concepts that you are teaching about in your current module or lesson.