This study investigated the relationships among 'sense of humor', 'creativity', 'creativity in scientific humor', and 'perceptions of educational benefits for making scientific humor' of elementary students. To do this, fifth graders (n=42) at an elementary school and fifth graders (n=38) at gifted science education institutes in Seoul were selected. Tests for 'sense of humor', 'creativity', 'creativity in scientific humor', and 'perceptions of educational benefits for making scientific humor' were then administered. Analysis of the results revealed that all subcategories of 'sense of humor' had significantly positive relationships with all subcategories of 'creativity' except 'openness'. However, all subcategories of 'sense of humor' were not significantly correlated with all subcategories of 'creativity in scientific humor' and 'perception of educational benefits for making scientific humor'. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

In Korea, the lower elementary grades are applying a topic-oriented integrated curriculum. It causes a lack of science content and inquiry experience for young children. The purpose of this study is to understand the scientific experiences and perceptions of the lower elementary graders and to inquire about the meaning of those experiences in their science learning. Four students (male 2, female 2), their parents, and their first-year homeroom teachers participated in the study. The data collection was mainly conducted through in-depth interview of them. Results showed that the 'experiments' were the student's the main perception of science, and the epistemic emotion that students mainly feel about science was 'curiousness'. Since most experiences were dependent on non-formal educational experience, the parents were an important factor to determine their experiences about science. Various factors, such as students' scientific experiences, their epistemic emotions, and the parents, interacted to form children's perception of science. The positive perception of science affected the level of motivation and expectation for science learning as the third grade. It is suggested that improvement of curriculum and textbooks should emphasize scientific exploration for the lower graders of elementary school, which provides them meaningful scientific experience in school.

In this study, we surveyed characteristics of the science related collaborative problem solving competency of pre-service elementary teachers, especially required in the digital age. The participants in online survey were 119 pre-service elementary teachers of National University of Education located in Gangwon province. The analyzed results of survey were as follows: First, pre-service teachers performed their task responsibly in collaborative problem solving context related to science. However, they lacked competencies in making rubrics for problem solving processes or outcomes, and setting up rules about team activities. Second, in using ICT technology, the competencies of utilizing tools such as app and software lacked compared with the competencies of searching data in online and using ppt. Third, there was no statistically significant difference among groups by their intensive major in university or selective subject in high school. Nevertheless, pre-service teachers majoring in natural science showed more persistence than those majoring in humanities in problem solving context. Finally, there was no significant gender difference except 'clear communication and accomplishment'. That is, female pre-service teachers performed more responsible in their task and showed more fluency in communication and presentation within their group than male counterparts. Based on these results, implications in the field of pre-service teacher education were discussed.

This study aims to develop a scientific creativity task which science-gifted elementary students can conduct on a field trip to a botanical garden, and to analyze the results from conducting the task. For this, 38 science-gifted fifth-graders from the Science-Gifted Education Center, located at the Office of Education, participated in a field trip to a botanical garden, as a part of their program. Prior to the program, researchers developed a scientific creativity task for outdoor education program, along with science education specialists and teachers. The tasks were to observe plants, and to create something new and useful, or, in other words, scientifically creative, based on the plants' characteristics. The students could submit at most three ideas. Also, they assessed their own ideas, and selected an idea that they thought was the most creative. The results were analyzed by using the scientific creativity formula. The main findings from this study are as follows. First, it was found that the scientific creativity formula had an upward bias in assessing originality. Second, the students tended to assess the usefulness of their own ideas more generously. Third, the correlation between self-assessment results and scores from the scientific creativity formula for originality was r=.43. Fourth, in formula-based assessments, the correlation between originality scores and usefulness scores was relatively high, at r=.56. Fifth, the correlation between a student's scientific creativity score and the number of his or her ideas was very low, at r=.23. Sixth, when the ideas chosen as the most creative by students were compared with the ideas that had the highest scores in formula-based assessments, it was shown that 8 out of 19 students (42.1%) did not choose the idea that appeared to be the most creative when graded by the formula. This study is concluded by discussing the lessons from the scientific creativity task analysis for primary science education and gifted education.

The aims of this study were to do a survey on teachers' perception and operational state for elementary science online remote classes and suggest ways to improve the elementary science online remote classes. The survey was based on responses from 100 teachers who have taught elementary science online remote classes for the first semester of 2020 for COVID-19. The questionnaire used in this study consisted of four parts: general informations of participants, the operation status of elementary science online remote classes, teachers' perceptions on the operation of elementary science online remote classes, ways to improve elementary science online remote classes. As a result of this study, elementary teachers taught elementary science online remote classes on the main use of content utilization type. And they had a difficulty in conducting elementary science online remote classes because of lack of contents, absence of elementary science online remote classes teaching methods, learner management and heavy workload. Therefore, to improve elementary science online remote classes the Ministry of Education and regional offices of education have to develop and provide high-quality contents reflect the characteristics of elementary science subjects, introduce a rent-an-experiment equipment system, and build a science class platform providing frequent real-time interaction between teacher and student.