Science does not happen only in the class room.  As a student and a teacher I work and have worked from home or where ever I can.  There is always a safety concern and no one should try something that is dangerous at home or anywhere but a lab that is suited for the type of experiment you are doing.  Many times I try something at home before I try it at work.  If it does not work in a simple environment and I think it should then I go to the place in the lab at work that has the controls to do it in the scientific method.  

I find that the experiments at home tend to give me great results that are repeatable at work.  Sometime the rigor of the lab stops you from the quick and easy experiments that jump start an idea.

Both are as important in discovery.  

Science does not happen only in the class room.  As a student and a teacher I work and have worked from home or where ever I can.  There is always a safety concern and no one should try something that is dangerous at home or anywhere but a lab that is suited for the type of experiment you are doing.  Many times I try something at home before I try it at work.  If it does not work in a simple environment and I think it should then I go to the place in the lab at work that has the controls to do it in the scientific method.  

I find that the experiments at home tend to give me great results that are repeatable at work.  Sometime the rigor of the lab stops you from the quick and easy experiments that jump start an idea.

Both are as important in discovery.  

Of course there are experiments which I would never ask my students to do at home, even if they had the equipment. I would certainly not let them do experiments that involve electricity or anything that might be poisonous. But in order to show how much science means to everyday life you will have to involve science into everyday life. The connection between everyday phenomena and the science learned at school is important, especially for physics because it is sometimes not so obvious. If all the physics just happened in a sterile laboratory what would it mean to a student? In my opinion many things that are published under the label of smartphone-physics are very good examples for very fruitful experiments that can be done at home. Smartphones provide a large number of sensors that allow students to measure a lot of interesting things. Even more, the data collected at home can be analyzed at school.

There is however one thing that always turns out to be a problem: you never know what the students actually did to collect the data. If the design of the experiment is challenging they will make mistakes and sometimes you do not find out what they did wrong. This data might not be useful for further analysis. Even more, the students might develop misconceptions about how experiments work in science because they do not conduct them properly. Anyway, an experienced teacher certainly knows which experiments can be conducted at home. The literature is full of examples for physics with everyday materials such as plastic bottles. You definitely have to prepare them at school and also talk about the results at school afterwards. It is crucial to link them to the physics lessons, experiments at home cannot expected to have an impact on learning if they are not integrated.

If you are asking me as a scientist, I have to admit that I am not aware of any study that ever compared experiments at home with experiments at school. I would expect effects on motivation, but not for all students. Anyway, if the choice is just between experiments at home and no experiments at home, I would certainly encourage to do them because of more time on task!

Well: since I work in a virtual university, we make students to do experiments at home. They have to buy some materials, perform the experiments and record them with a videocamera (or the smartphone).

You find curious results: one of the experiments i to test how aluminium paper block phone waves. We put the mobile inside aluminium paper, call at it and it does not sound.... But we found once a student that kept the mobile always ringing when he was at home; but not when he was in his grandma's home. At the end we discovered that he lived next to a antenna and the power of the signal at home was high enough to go thorough aluminium paper.

I am glad to see enthusiasts of home experiments.  I'll discuss now safety, the issue of importance to your administration, parents, and even students.  We have to distinguish between the perceived danger (fear of complaints or even litigation) from a real danger.  You deal with the first by inserting certain warnings into student handout, requiring a written consent from parents, or even making this activity optional. 

As to real danger, the number of really dangerous physical experiments is very small. If students don't use AC current, look into a laser beam or at the sun, and they are practically safe.  All optical experiments are safe, and there are great many of them.  For instance, all experiments described in my Rediscovering Optics were repeated at home.  All experiments on static electricity are safe, to limit the effect of a Leyden jar discharge - students' favorite experiment -  use plastic jars to larger than 150 ml (bearers of pacemakers should not do this).

Galvanic circuits are (chemically) safe if you use lemon juice.

If you grade students' reports and count these points towards towards the total grade for the period, the number of volunteers will quickly increase.  Of course, you mention examples of good work in class!  This kind of experiments - with a lot of freedom for students - always creates competition, which is very beneficial to students.

I think that I have to add that my students are 35 years old in average. Nevertheless, we do not make any potentially dangerous experiment.

... hello sir.... what a question????

i enjoyed it .....

i haven't assign any physical activity to my students yet.... but i think we all should assign some activities to our students.... whether we are at school level or college level....  

physical activity involves involvement of head, hand and heart....

more fruitful....

for body and mind 

Yes,

To maximize their effectiveness home experiments are to be integrated into the course.  First, they need an instruction in how to do experiments, including those at home.  At the early stage of this learning, done in the classroom  home assignments consisted of the last part of a classroom experiment.  For instance, in the class students investigated 2 variables and 2 more were given to do at home.  Students approached this task without much fear, for they got some experience with this problem in school and knew what kind of instruments and materials they needed, because when selecting instruments for the classroom - always simple, cheap and easy to make - I had in mind feasibility of recreating them at home. At the next classroom session students discuss their home results, argue their cases if the results differ, and make the general conclusion.

At the next stage of learning, home experiments can serve as the beginning of solving a given problem, the completion of which to be achieved in the classroom.  Finally, independent projects may be given to students who want them to be fully done at home.

For details and examples of applying the historical-investigative method see my Rediscovering Optics and various articles on this site.  See also the thread

"Is it important to excite students' curiosity and initiative?"

Learning can not be confined to the class room only. Students must be able to learn from every life experience and activities they are involved in. They can definitely try many experiments at home without any difficulty and danger.  Students must be encouraged to do try experiments at home also.