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Cristina, As an elementary science teacher I 100% agree. In fact, this became very clear to me early on, back in March of 2020. I did exactly what you suggested and put together small science kits to do science activities from home with my 1st and 2nd grade students. A great deal of things come upwith this type of project, that in reflecting on what I did was absolutley insane to do in the first place. That said, the engagement from most students was pallatable and real. As with all things science, there was a lot to learn and reflect on. I should note that I teach at a small private school. So, small student numbers, flexibility with standards and a department budget that I oversee all helped.
Safety and contents: Giving materials to 1st and 2nd graders means to be very aware of what they get, how they organize them and who has access to them. Literature had to be included, I felt, to make sure liability and saftey were covered for myself and the school.
Distribution: For my first kit I chose a small USPS flat rate box, but shipping can get expensive. Dropping the kits off at the students worked for a few, but not all students. It took a few days to do.
Assembling the kit: Materials could no longer be shared among students, so each student needed individual materials. We were on an 'Exodus' in March and April, so materials had to be based on what I gathered from my lab. I also used materials I had in my garage or could find at the Dollar Tree store. Labeling, warnings and other packaging materials had to be considered, I felt, to make it easier for when students and parents had the kits at home.
Lessons: The goal during the spring 2020 was not about covering NGSS standards, but rather to keep students interested in science and engaged in class. This alleviated some pressure for me when having to adjust certain lessons, and at a private school this flexibility is allowed. Lessons for at home, with instructing students over Zoom means a change in prep for the materials and sometimes the lesson itself. It has to be able for students to manipulate at home without parent support if possible. I had to rethink many lessons I had created for the year within a short period of time.
To give you an idea, here is a link to an image of my first kit: Spring 2020 Science Kit. That was the Spring, and to give you an idea of how well it worked, my administration asked me to develop kits for ALL my students at the school. Which, again, small, but I'm one person, so it ended up bing about 55 kits, for 1st through 5th grades. This posed other challenges. I worked an insane amount of hours every day for several weeks in the summer to get the kits ready to be given to families at the start of school. My wife and daughter again had to give lending hands. It was VERY LABOR INTENSIVE to put together, organize and consider everything ahead of time. All the above still applied, but now I needed to be more standards aligned. Not only did I have to change lessons, but I had to practice and make sure they worked. This is a science teacher thing as it is, but now I had to do it all ahead of time. With the hope that the kits would keep students engaged for at least the first semester. Supplies became another factor, if I wanted students to measure the mass, each student needed a scale. Keeping supplies contained, I had to rethink how the materials were stored and accessible for students. Turn over of other kits also became an ordeal and time consuming. For students traveling it posed some unique issues as my 5th grade kit had some 'no fly' chemicals involved.
Additional challenges still come up: students keeping the supplies organized is still a thing. No matter how I set them up to be organized, they still lose things. The sheer number of physical kits and filling them up is beyond words for me at this point. I will mention, that for a majority of the students these things were successful in keeping engagement up, and giving them the chance to learn science using hands on methods. Many students were very excited to receive the kits, and were generally respectful of the materials. Here are some of the 2020-21 kits: 4th Grade (ES) 5th Grade (PS)
I think overall it very much depends on the goal of the teacher in these pandemic learning times.
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