The Effects of Science and Art Integrated Program on Brain Activity of Gifted Students in Science

과학과 미술 통합프로그램이 초등과학영재의 뇌 활성에 미치는 효과

This study is to activate gifted students' brains for creativity ability and also an integrated science and art teaching program. The learning programs integrating science and art, which have 30 periods and 10 topics on art and the knowledge of science, were developed dependant on five steps - observing, having interests and curiosity, experimental designing and performing, internalizing, and expressing in an arts-based manner. This programs were applied to 20 senior gifted students in Y Elementary School in Gyeonggi province, by one group pretest-posttest design. The results from these integrated programs of science and art are as follows: First, in the performance of science tasks, prefrontal lobe(F7, FT7) of left brain increase the relative power of theta wave, whereas in the performance of drawing tasks increase the relative power of beta wave in prefrontal lobe(FP1) of left brain, bilateral frontal(F7, F3, Fz, F4, F8, FT7, FC3, FCz), bilateral temporal(T7, TP7, TP8, P7), parietal lobe of left brain(CP3, CPz, P3, Pz), bilateral occipital(O1, Oz, O2). Second, in the performance of science tasks, the relative power of beta wave activity in the left temporal lobe(T7) of the brains of talented students in science significantly decreased whereas it was greatly activated in another part, the left frontal lobe(F3) of the brain (p<.05). Third, in the performance of drawing tasks, the relative power of theta wave activity in five areas of the brain, namely the left temporal lobe(T7), the left frontal lobe(F3), the right frontal lobe(F4), and the left and right parietal lobes of gifted students in science who took the course of the integrated programs, was considerably increased statistically(p<.05). On top of that, these programs were especially effective in balancing the symmetrical development of both cerebral hemispheres by multiplying theta wave activity in the frontal lobes(F3, F4) and the parietal lobes(CP3, P3, P4), which are particularly related to creative thinking. According to the results of this study of brain-based teaching strategies combining science and art, it is an effective program to develop overall activate gifted students' brains for creativity ability. This is expected to be utilized to activate the brain areas for creativity of gifted students in science.