Junior high school students are losing out on their usual opportunities for science experiments as part of their lessons amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent survey shows.

In the education ministry survey, only 45.8 percent of junior high schools reported that the frequency of science experiment lessons was once a week or more in the last academic year, 18.8 percentage points lower than in the previous survey.

The ministry conducted the survey in April along with the nationwide academic achievement test for elementary school sixth-graders and junior high school third-graders.

Teachers have expressed concerns that students are having fewer opportunities to “explore things scientifically,” which the government’s guidance on teaching places importance on.

At Kaishin Daiyon Junior High School in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward, all science experiments were conducted in a science room before the pandemic began.

However, since several students gathered around each table when science experiments were conducted, their close proximity posed a risk of infection.

Teachers were also concerned that multiple students sharing the experiment tools could also allow the novel coronavirus to spread.

As a result, it was decided that science experiments should be conducted in classrooms, not in the science room.

In April, teacher Takeru Ueda, 41, asked 33 third-graders during a science lesson in their classroom at Kaishin Daiyon Junior High School if "anybody wants to do this?"

He was conducting an experiment using two metal wires with different electrical resistance. The two wires were connected in a series circuit in one example and in a parallel circuit in another. The experiment was intended to see in which case the wires will produce more heat.

One male student volunteered and helped the experiment by placing pieces of Styrofoam on the metal wires, while other students watched from their seats.

In the science examination of the nationwide academic achievement test for junior high school third-graders, the percentage of students who gave no answer was highest for the question asking them to think how they should conduct an experiment when one fails.

Ueda explained, “I thought this question was difficult if students don’t have the experience of conducting an experiment and thinking about it.”

When he conducts a science experiment in a classroom, Ueda prepares many tools and makes sure that all students participate in it.

However, he expressed concern saying, “A science experiment cannot become part of students unless they conduct it. They can’t learn from failing in the experiment, either.”

A 32-year-old male teacher of a public junior high school in Kumamoto Prefecture has given science lessons in which students are asked to think through experiments.

For example, he shows students sugar and flour and asks them what experiment is needed to determine which is which.

However, it is now only possible to conduct only 70 to 80 percent of the science experiments that were done pre-COVID-19, he said.

The new government’s guidance on teaching for the 2021 academic year places an importance on “nurturing the ability to explore things scientifically,” for science classes at junior high schools.

However, in the nationwide academic achievement test, junior high school students generally scored lower on questions testing this very ability.

Education ministry officials have said that there is no relationship between fewer science experiment lessons and the lower scores.

However, the male teacher has expressed his concern saying, “Fewer experiments means fewer opportunities to explore things.”

Shinya Morimoto, a professor emeritus at the faculty of educational human sciences at Yokohama National University, an expert on science education, said, “Making a hypothesis to do an experiment and observation and analyzing the results is exploratory learning in itself. If students have fewer opportunities to do these, it’s understandable that they will score lower on the questions testing exploratory ability.”

The government is eager to nurture people with scientific knowledge and skills, but Morimoto is concerned that fewer scientific experiments at schools could weaken the foundation to do so.

On average, junior high school third-graders answered 49.7 percent of science questions correctly in the nationwide academic achievement test.

This was 16.8 percentage points lower than in the previous test conducted four years ago and the worst among all subjects.