I hate the practicals we do in science classes. It's just so boring, and let me tell you why, since you seem to be slightly interested.

Before I begin, let me tell you that I love doing my own experiments, especially when I design it. The joy I get from using the data I acquire from my experiments to find patterns and further my understanding, while measurable, is a fair bit of joy. The thing is, the way experiments are conducted in schools, just bore the living daylights out of me.

The problem, I see with practicals, is that they're there for the sake of it. I'm not sure if it's because of tradition or if it's just to bore us or just to make people hate school even more, but there's no need for it, at least in the way they're being used now.

We conduct the experiments after we have finished the theory of the subject and I see no reason for this. I mean, how will conducting this experiment nurture our understanding of the subject? It really doesn't. At least, it doesn't for me.

Some of you might say "But Channa (because we are on first name terms now) maybe their conducting the experiments to simply just confirm the theory we learnt!"

That'd be all fine and dandy if that was true, but (wait for it) it's not.

Here's why:

• The experiments are very rough. There are many possible errors that could occur (half the class rinse their burettes with tap water for god's sake) and possibly sully our results. Now, if we trying to confirm or maybe provide evidence for the theory we learnt, we would need at least some fairly accurate results. But if we have such a large margin of error, how are we supposed to use this as evidence for our results? What if there was another independent variable? Clearly, we aren't trying to provide evidence for our theories, otherwise we'd try to have a small margin of error.
  
• If we have some unexpected results, we are to just brush it off and not use our results and just believe that the theory is right. I mean, I agree, the results are most likely to be wrong, but still, at least we could try again. I mean, our classmates may have got the "correct" results, but I mean, shouldn't we try ourselves? I mean, if we didn't do it ourselves, we might have taken the books word, rather than just listening to our classmates.
  
• We have a tiny set of results, that in no way would provide evidence for the theory. I mean, I reacted HCl and CaCO₃, which made a gas, and once we reacted that gas with lime water, it was found to be Carbon Dioxide. But I don't agree that's enough evidence that Acid + Metal Carbonate [insert arrow] Salt + Carbon Dioxide + Water. I mean, the HCl or the CaCo₃ could have been a special case or something. It's not good evidence. Sure, with many sets of results between many different Acid and Metal Carbonate reactions, we would have a better set of evidence, but that one reaction alone, isn't enough to justify as good evidence.
  

The pracs do practically nothing. They have no use.

Now I'm not saying take away all experiments, that's just not right. It gives the wrong impression of what science is. People actually did experiments to find out the theory. And I say, why don't we do that in class?

I mean, before we start the theory, why don't we try to do the experiments that led to the theory? Of course, some of it's dangerous and some of it is just not practical under a school budget, but the ones we do now, can be shifted forward.

And using the results we get from our experiments (which will have to be modified), we can work out the theory.

I feel that this makes better use of practicals and it's generally more fun, mostly because there's still this general air of mystery surrounding the theory.

Course, the teacher will guide you, but you would probably do most of the working our by yourselves and it helps kids learn more about the subject at hand, rather than just simply copying down the notes on the board and memorizing them a day before the tests.