Teaching and learning by engaging learners in practical work in science is regarded as useful in linking theory to practice. Practical work is linked to inquiry based learning, and is seen as a route to learning how to apply the scientific method. Within the South African context, where learner performance in Science and Mathematics has been dismal based on international and national evaluative tests, the importance of practical work has received greater attention. A large amount of the work that has been done about practical work in science classrooms focusses on practicing or pre-service teachers. Little attention has been directed to what learners say about practical work. We address this paucity by exploring learners’ views about practical work, through the following question: “What are learners’ views about the effectiveness of practical work in Natural Sciences classrooms? Why do learners hold these views?” In order to respond to these questions we designed a qualitative study within an interpretivist paradigm. We purposively selected grade nine Natural Sciences learners who participated in individual and focus group interviews. Our findings reveal that all the participants valued practical work for four reasons. First, practical work enabled learning of science process skills; second, it deepened conceptual understanding; third, it made science fun and enjoyable and finally, it enabled them to relate classroom science to activities in daily life. These findings are significant to science teachers and policy makers who determine the scope of practical work.

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