science

SCAMPER

SCAMPER is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand SCAMPER rather than just read about it. In short: SCAMPER ("substitute, combine, adjust, modify, put to other uses, eliminate, reverse") is an acronym that provides a structured way of assisting students to think out of the box and enhance their knowledge. It is thought to protect students' creativity as they mature.

Key takeaways

SCAMPER belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect SCAMPER to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of SCAMPER from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

SCAMPER ("substitute, combine, adjust, modify, put to other uses, eliminate, reverse") is an acronym that provides a structured way of assisting students to think out of the box and enhance their knowledge. It is thought to protect students' creativity as they mature.

History The SCAMPER technique was developed by Bob Eberle, who was looking for a way to foster creativity in children. Eberle was inspired by the checklist described by Alex Faickney Osborn in his book Applied Imagination. SCAMPER was also influenced by techniques created by Frank E. Williams and his colleagues to encourage creative-imaginative expression in children. Eberle used some of Osborn's questions, along with insights from the work of Williams and his team, to create the SCAMPER technique, which he described in his 1971 book "SCAMPER: Games for Imagination Development."

Definition SCAMPER is an activity-based thinking process that can be performed by cooperative learning. Here the teacher assists the students in choosing a particular topic and helps them to develop it through a structured process. After picking an idea, the students are given a tale where they perform the activity in steps corresponding to the letters in the name.

Substitute (analogy) comes up with another topic that is equivalent to the present topics. Combine (convergence) adds information to the original topic. Adjust identifies ways to construct the topic in a more flexible and adjusted material. Modify, magnify, minify creatively changes the topic or makes a feature/idea bigger or smaller. Put to other uses (generate/divergence/connect) identifies the possible scenarios and situations where this topic can be used. Eliminate removes ideas or elements from the topic that are not valuable. Reverse, rearrange evolves a new concept from the original concept. Hence, SCAMPER as a teaching strategy helps the students to analyze the knowledge in its creative form and helps the teacher to make teaching creative and interesting. We can link creativity methods to Combinatorics.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with SCAMPER

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what SCAMPER claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to SCAMPER before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about SCAMPER ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of SCAMPER

In research: SCAMPER appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses SCAMPER in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: SCAMPER is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Acronyms, Creativity, Education stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for SCAMPER outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study SCAMPER in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what SCAMPER means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain SCAMPER out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is SCAMPER in simple terms?

Why does SCAMPER matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study SCAMPER?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on SCAMPER.