Isopods under the magnifying glass

The isopods arrived before most of the furniture had settled. In the first weeks of school the class set up a habitat for them, and the children in lab coats and safety goggles spent part of each science block simply watching: how the isopods move, where they hide, what they do when the soil is damp and when it is dry.

Watching first is the point. Children are quick to explain and slow to look, and the Montessori science table is arranged to reverse that. A magnifying glass, a notebook and a real living thing give a five-year-old and a nine-year-old the same job: look closely, say what you see, and only then say what you think it means.

This is how the school's Research Institute of Planet Earth works all year. Small teams take a guiding question, investigate it with their hands, record what they find and present it to the class. The isopods were the first question of the year. The lab coats, which the children earned along with their science badges, are a small sign that the work is taken seriously.