In this study, we explored the factors related with preference for and participation in science-related activities of elementary school students. We developed a questionnaire to measure the characteristics of students such as motivation toward science learning, science aspiration, family science orientation, parental educational level and occupation, and the degrees of preference and participation of science-related activities. The questionnaire was administered to about 400 fourth graders in Seoul. The results revealed that the students with higher motivation toward science learning and/or science aspiration preferred and participated more in most activities. It was also found that parental educational level and occupation did not make an appreciable difference in preference and participation. The students who perceived their parents to be science-oriented, however, preferred and participated more in most activities. These results may offer practical implications for effective uses of both school and out-of-school science activities in elementary science education.

The purpose of this study is to find out the effect of STEAM program on the scientific communication skills and the learning flow of elementary gifted students. The main findings of this study are as follows: First, STEAM program that mathematical, technical, engineering and art factors were combined based on basic concepts of science were developed. Seconds, the change in the scientific communication skills of experimental group applying STEAM program had statistically meaningful difference (p<.05). Third, the flow of experimental class improved, but it had no meaningful difference statistically (p>.05). But it is expected that continuing level adjusted STEAM program might have positive effect on improving the flow with the following three reasons: 1) The gifted students' flow level on learning before experiment was rather too high to expect short term effect. 2) It was hard for them to achieve flow experience because topic difficulties and students' capacities were not balanced. 3) topic commitments and autotelic behaviors of gifted students were observed during classes. Fourth, by the result of the student satisfaction questionnaire survey on this program, students actively participated in the STEAM program with interest and curiosity. As achieved self-directed problem solving, versatile communication activities and success experiences, their class satisfaction was high. Based on such results, it was expected that the gifted class applied of STEAM program could enhance scientific communication capacity of the elementary gifted students and would further positively influence flow of learning as well. In addition, it was considered to have integrated approach value to elementary gifted and talented education in the aspect that it could satisfy various educational demands of gifted students.

Environmental education contents in science textbooks of South Korea and the United States were compared and analyzed in order to find how to develop environmental education in elementary science education. McGraw-Hill science textbooks for third to sixth grade and science textbooks of Korea based on the 2009 Revised National Curriculum and the 2007 Revised National Curriculum were analyzed and compared. The categories were educational goals, kinds of contents, distributions of contents and tense. The result showed that the environmental education goals in science textbook of Korea and United States were biased to knowledge area. The educational contents of the United States was higher 2.5 times then Korea and distributed in all areas. In quantitative distributions in Korea were biased some special areas. Tense of educational contents were almost present. Attitudes and recognition of students varies gradually over a long period of time, the contents of environmental education will be useful "evenly distributed" for all areas and school year.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the trends of the studies related to 'Community of Practice (CoP)' in Korea. 79 research papers published in the KCI level Korean journals were collected, and analyzed according to 'research area', 'research theme', 'research methods'. The definitions and the performance factors of CoP were analyzed as well. The major results of this study were: (a) the most popular research area in the studies of CoP was the area of 'company management', and the second one was the area of 'school education'; (b) the most popular research theme was to analyze of the performance and the performance factors of CoPs to explore the features of actual CoPs was the second one; (c) there was a tendency to regard the 'Sponsored CoP' as a kind of CoP, that is an controversy issue still though; (d) the performance factor of CoP was a 'knowledge sharing'. Finally, the several implications for following studies related to elementary science education were discussed.

In this study, we investigated the characteristics of the reading materials in the elementary school science textbooks in order to obtain implications for the effective use of them. The reading materials in the elementary school science textbooks developed under the 7th and the 2007 revised National Science Curricula were analyzed. The criteria for classifying the reading materials were the type of theme, purpose, students' activity, the type of presentation, the type of images, the role of images, and readability. The results indicated that the reading materials in the 2007 revised science textbooks are more systematic than those in the 7th science textbooks in terms of their length and their distribution among energy, matter, life, and earth areas. It was also found that various types of reading materials are presented in the 2007 revised science textbooks covering new themes such as frontier science, job opportunity and career, and environment. In addition, the reading materials in the 2007 revised science textbooks introduce more visual images and the readability of them are also better than their counterpart. However, several limitations were still found to exist in the reading materials of the 2007 revised textbooks; most of them are non-inquiry and explanatory; most of the visual images are illustration and/or pictures. Educational implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to compare and analyze the elementary science curriculum of Finland, which ranked at the first place in the science domain of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a comparative study on the academic achievements of OECD member nations, for three consecutive years and recorded a high national competitiveness index, and that of South Korea, thus providing information needed to develop curriculums and textbooks in the middle of occasional curriculum revisions and giving useful implications for the implementation of curriculum in the field of education in South Korea. The research findings were as follows: First, as for the science content areas based on the ratio of large area items according to the evaluation and analysis framework of TIMSS 2007, South Korea's ratio of life, chemistry, physics, and earth hardly showed fitness for TIMSS 2007 and exhibited equal distribution among the areas. In Finland, the ratio of life, chemistry, physical, and earth was similar to the fourth grade level of TIMSS 2007. The country showed differential distribution with life accounting for the highest percentage. Second, as for the cognitive domains, South Korea showed a high percentage in "Uses and Procedures of Tools" of "1. Knowing" and "Making Connections," "Comparison/Contrast/Classification," and "Uses of Models" of "2. Application." Finland recorded a high percentage in "Information Interpretation" of "2. Application." While South Korea focused on the uses and methods of scientific instruments during scientific activities, Finland made an approach with a focus on problems related to daily life such as the interpretation of information including reports and graphs from an interpretative perspective.

Modern society is rapidly changing in the fields of science and technology, with new information and knowledge constantly being discovered. So enhancing the creativity and positive attitude of students is important. STEAM education enables students to develop their creativity, personality, intelligence and sensitivity with a well-balanced curriculum. In this study, considering the student's interest, a theme-centered STEAM program was developed in the 'Strata and Fossils' unit of elementary 4th grade science. The purposes were to find the impact on the academic achievement, creative problem solving abilities, and scientific attitude of elementary school students. The STEAM program are composed of contents which can be applied effectively indoors. As application results for STEAM program to J elementary school's students in J province, the experimental group increased significantly in the academic achievement, creative problem solving abilities and scientific attitude compared to the control group. Therefore, it is necessary to be developed continuous and systematic STEAM programs in units of various subjects to improve the students' academic achievement, creative problem solving abilities and scientific attitude.

The purpose of this study was to develop the creative hands-on activities using EM (effective microorganisms) that can enhance the environmental literacy of learners, and to examine the effect of its application. The program was composed of 10 sessions, including biological knowledge and ecosystem status of microorganisms, practical activities that stimulate the environmental behavior and emotion of elementary school students, and career design related to their aptitude and occupation in future. This program can also be connected to the domains of creative hands-on activities, that is, career activities, club activities, self-regulated activities and voluntary service activities. In this study, two classes of 3th grades of elementary school in Seoul were selected and divided into two groups. The experimental group to undergo the program of creative hands-on activities using EM showed higher environmental literacy than the control group. In the concrete, it is proven that this program contributed to the improvement of learners' environmental emotion, skill, and behavior. When interviewed with experimental group, we found that sustained EM hands-on activities were conducted in collaboration with their families, and they became more aware of the utilities of EM and could participate in the activities more interestingly. In conclusion, the creative hands-on activities program was very effective and helped elementary students to change their environmental literacy in positive ways.

The purpose of this study was to develop a science gifted education program as a strategy for modulating gifted children's overexcitabilities and to examine the effect of such program on task commitment and creative personality. The results of this study were as follows. First, science gifted education program which modulated gifted children's overexcitabilities showed significant effect on the improvement of task commitment. Looking at sub domains, significant results were obtained at self-regulation. Second, science gifted education program which modulated gifted children's overexcitabilities showed significant effect on the improvement of creative personality. Looking at sub domains, significant results were obtained at the self-conviction and humors. Third, students who experienced the classes showed affirmative responses that the new teaching method was interesting and helpful. Looking at the above results, science gifted education program which modulated gifted children's overexcitabilities can be considered as effective for improving task commitment and creative personality of elementary scientific gifted students.

In this study, the readability of the texts in the third and the sixth grade science textbooks developed under the 2007 revised science curriculum were analyzed in terms of word and sentence units. In the word unit analyses, the levels of the words in the texts were classified into four categories, 1st to 4th levels. In the sentence unit analyses, the sentences in the texts were classified either a simple sentence or compound/complex sentences, and the average length of the sentences was also calculated. The results indicated that more than 90 percents of the words in the 2007 revised science textbooks were classified as the 1st to the 3rd levels. However, both the kinds and the frequencies of the words in the 2007 revised science textbooks were increased in comparison of those in the 7th science textbooks. In particular, it was found that the increasement in the 3rd grade science textbook was noticeable. The ratio of the compound/complex sentences in the 2007 revised science textbooks were increased in comparison of those in the 7th science textbooks. The average length of the sentences in the 2007 revised science textbooks was also increased.

The purpose of this study was to compare thinking styles between the gifted students in science and invention The subjects were 191 gifted elementary students in science and 182 gifted elementary students in invention, who enrolled in gifted education program. They were given the Thinking Style Inventory (TSI) that standardized Korea version by Yun (1997), which constructed 13 thinking styles of 5 dimensions (functions, forms, levels, scopes, and leanings of the mental self-government). The collected data were analyzed by independent sampling t-test and ANOVA with SPSS. The findings of this study were as follows: the gifted in science prefer executive, oligarchic, and global thinking styles rather than the gifted in invention. Meanwhile, the gifted in invention prefer legislative, judicial, local, and liberal thinking styles rather than the gifted in science. Both of the gifted in science and invention prefer legislative, executive, monarchic, anarchic, external, and liberal thinking styles. There was statistically significant differences between boys and girls in executive, oligarchic, local, and liberal thinking styles of the gifted in science.

The purpose of this study is to develop a program for elementary school students' scientific experimental design knowledge generation. This study also investigated the effects of their experimental design ability, as well as the change in the type and elaborateness of their experimental design by applying the program. The subjects of this study was 4 classes in 6th grade of an elementary school located in Seoul, KOREA. The classes were divided into experimental and comparative groups. While the treatment was applied to the experimental group, the comparative group was taught using conventional methods. The pre-test and post-test for students' capability of building scientific experimental design knowledge were conducted to compare the ability of experimental design, the change in the type and elaborateness of experimental design. The findings in this study are as follows: First, the program appeared to be effective in improving experimental design ability. Furthermore, the program appeared to be more effective in generating a higher level of the experimental design type and elaborateness. Therefore, in order to improve experimental design knowledge generation ability, the program can be utilized as effective learning model in elementary school.

In National Curriculum of Science revised in 2007, 'Free Inquiry' was newly introduced to increase student's interest in science and to foster creativity by having students make their own questions and find answers by themselves. The purpose of the study was to analyze characteristics deployed in the processes of elementary school students' free inquiry activities applying a brain-based evolutionary science teaching and learning principles. For this study, 106 the fifth grade students participated, and they performed individually free inquiry activities according to a brain-based evolutionary approach. In order to characterize the diversifying, estimating-evaluating-executing, and extending-applying activities in behavioral domain, the free inquiry diary constructed by the students, observations by the researcher, and interviews with the students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major results of this study were as follows: First, the students preferred basic inquiry process skills and the majority of the students selected observation as a major approach of their inquiry. The reason was found to be that they were accustomed to only typical basic inquiry skills which is frequently presented at textbooks and regular instruction and didn't have appropriate experience for using relevant integrative inquiry skills. Second, most of the methods diversified and selected by the students were confined to descriptive explanation rather than causal one. Third, both of the science attitude and academic achievement were associated with the number of diversified methods and the selection of appropriate method. Based on these findings, implications for supporting domain novices in inquiry learning environments are advanced.

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for improving the STEAM class by examining elementary school teachers' difficulties in the STEAM class and discussing solutions. For this research, 25 elementary school teachers in Seoul City and Gyeonggi-do were asked to write their difficulties in the STEAM class in the open-ended questionnaires. After classification of the collected data, an in-depth interview was conducted with one in-service elementary school teacher who is richly experienced in STEAM education to find solutions for each type of difficulties. The study result showed that most of elementary school teachers had difficulties in the STEAM class, due to selection of integrated subjects, production of teaching devices and materials, guidance of group activities, reorganization of the curriculum, assessment and uncooperative co-teachers. One teacher that participated in the interview to discuss solutions for teachers' difficulties was solving the problems in various ways. She said that many of her solutions came from her experience and also, knowledge obtained through a participation in the STEAM training or opportunities to share information with other teachers who belong to the STEAM research institution, was highly helpful.

The purpose of this study is to survey and analyze difficulties in teaching and learning elementary school science on the chapter titled 'electric circuit'. 28 elementary school teachers who teach 5th grade science and 73 5th grade students in elementary school were taken part in this survey. The pilot questionnaire was distributed to find out both the degree and the reason of difficulties in teaching and learning. The answers are analyzed with four areas to extract elements which make class difficult; Learner factors (L), Instruction factors (I), Curriculum & textbooks factors (C), and Environment factors (E). The results are as follows. (1) It can be seen that both students and teachers feel the highest difficulty in 7th lesson 'the direction of current', while they felt little difficulty in lesson 3 'conductor and nonconductor' and lesson 8 'the safety of electricity'. (2) The most mentioned reason of difficulties in teaching and learning was Learner factors (L). (3) Teachers felt many difficulties in experimental environment. On the other hands, students didn't think experimental failures as serious trouble. (4) Students felt many difficulties in new terms and hazy concepts or expressions. (5) Teachers felt a lot of difficulties in those from Curriculum & textbooks factors.