• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.490-503
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• 2020

Oceanic current and circulation have played an important role as regulators of the earth's energy distribution. The science and earth science textbooks for secondary schools based on the 2015 revised curriculum included a misconception of the seasonal variation of the North Korea Cold Current (NKCC) among the currents around the Korean Peninsula. To analyze this, the contents related to the NKCC were collected in the textbooks of five middle and six high schools, and a questionnaire survey was conducted on 30 middle school science teachers. The survey consisted of questions about whether the textbook mentions the NKCC and whether there is an error in the concept of the temporal variation of the NKCC, and the teachers' free opinions related to the NKCC were collected. The textbooks suggest that the NKCC is strongest in winter, which is not consistent with scientific findings so far. In fact, there is scientific evidence that the NKCC is the strongest in the summer. In this study, the causes and processes of misconceptions were investigated. According to an analysis of the survey, most teachers had an knowledge that the NKCC is stronger in winter. These errors began with a misconception of the terms, which teachers had imprinted on their memory as firm knowledge. These misconceptions originated from the knowledge that teachers themselves acquired from their secondary school years and have long been transferred back to teachers and students without revising the misconceptions of textbooks. This situation is expected to have a seriously recurrent structure that produces students' serious misconceptions in the future. Therefore, this study summarizes existing results on the seasonal variability of the NKCC and suggests the necessity for re-education to improve teachers' professionalism and to eliminate the misconceptions of teachers and students.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.312-323
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• 2022

This study began with the hypothesis of whether "solar radiation" and "terrestrial radiation" can be replaced by "visible radiation" and "infrared radiation", respectively. To this end, we investigated the perceptions of high school students who completed the Earth Science I course through a questionnaire to reveal how they perceived each concept. We also analyzed the descriptions and illustrations of textbooks that may have affected their perceptions. All of the students who participated in the questionnaire recognized solar radiation as radiation emitted only in the visible light region. About 35% of the students recognized convection, conduction, and latent heat as energy transfer by radiation in the Earth's heat budget. By analyzing six types of Earth Science I textbooks in the 2015 revised curriculum, we observed that two types introduced the terms "shortwave radiation" and "longwave radiation" but had no explanation for them, while the other two described solar radiation as "radiation mainly in the visible light region" or "radiation in short wavelengths". Regarding solar and terrestrial radiation in the last two types, there was no explanation for the wavelength regions, or ambiguous terms such as "short wavelength" and "long wavelength" were used. In addition, the two textbooks contained some errors in the illustration of the energy budget. Considering that textbooks described solar and terrestrial radiation without defining the exact terms for shortwave and longwave radiation, learners are likely to recognize solar and terrestrial radiation as visible and infrared radiation, respectively. This finding implies that vague statements or errors in textbooks can cause or reproduce students' misconceptions. The discussion in this study is expected to be used as a helpful reference material for teaching and learning processes regarding the Earth's radiation equilibrium and heat budget, and thereby contribute to proposing reasonable description plans for future textbook writing.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.13-35
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• 2023

Ocean currents play the most important role in causing and controlling global climate change. The water depth of the Yellow Sea is very shallow compared to the East Sea, and the circulation and currents of seawater are quite complicated owing to the influence of various wind fields, ocean currents, and river discharge with low-salinity seawater. The Yellow Sea Warm Current (YSWC) is one of the most representative currents of the Yellow Sea in winter and is closely related to the weather of the southwest coast of the Korean Peninsula, so it needs to be treated as important in secondary-school textbooks. Based on the 2015 revised national educational curriculum, secondary-school science and earth science textbooks were analyzed for content related to the YSWC. In addition, a questionnaire survey of secondary-school science teachers was conducted to investigate their perceptions of the temporal variability of ocean currents. Most teachers appeared to have the incorrect knowledge that the YSWC moves north all year round to the west coast of the Korean Peninsula and is strong in the summer like a general warm current. The YSWC does not have strong seasonal variability in current strength, unlike the North Korean Cold Current (NKCC), but does not exist all year round and appears only in winter. These errors in teachers' subject knowledge had a background similar to why they had a misconception that the NKCC was strong in winter. Therefore, errors in textbook contents on the YSWC were analyzed and presented. In addition, to develop students' and teachers' data literacy, class materials on the YSWC that can be used in inquiry activities were developed. A graphical user interface (GUI) program that can visualize the sea surface temperature of the Yellow Sea was introduced, and a program displaying the spatial distribution of water temperature and salinity was developed using World Ocean Atlas (WOA) 2018 oceanic in-situ measurements of water temperature and salinity data and ocean numerical model reanalysis field data. This data visualization materials using oceanic data is expected to improve teachers' misunderstandings and serve as an opportunity to cultivate both students and teachers' ocean and data literacy.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.239-252
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to develop an evolutionary STEAM education program based on the brain and to analyze its effects on scientific interest and scientific creativity of elementary school students. Four different topics based on four scientific fields (Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Science) were derived from the science textbook under the 2015 revised curriculum to build a brain-based evolutionary STEAM education program. The research subjects were 90 fourth graders of S-elementary school located in Gyeonggi Province, Korea and they were divided into an experimental group of 45 students and a comparative group of 45 students. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, according to the independent samples t-test of scientific interest, no statistically significant difference were found between the two groups, but the brain-based evolutionary STEAM education had meaningful effect on improving 'interest in scientific learning' and 'anxiety about scientific learning'. Second, according to the paired samples t-test of scientific interest, the experimental group had significantly improved 'interest in science' but on the other hand, there was no effect on the comparative group. Third, scientific creativity and originality of the experimental group were significantly higher after the class than that of the comparative group. Fourth, although there were some significant differences between the two groups in scientific creativity after the class, both groups had improved scientific creativity between the results of pre and post test. Based on these results, we discuss implications for science education and STEAM education research.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.81-96
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• 2020

This study aims to identify implications for the role of home economics in consumer education in middle schools focusing on building consumer competency. To this end, the content in middle school textbooks of home economics and other subjects, written according to the 2015 revised curriculum, were analyzed. This study examined consumer education content based on the consumer competency measurement index developed by the Korean Consumer Agency, and reviewed different foci presented by subjects. This study also investigated how the knowledge, attitude and practice, which are components of consumer competency, are presented. The major findings of this study can be summarized as follows: First, consumer competency content, presented in textbooks of home economics and other subjects, were comprised of citizenship competency(65.3%), transactional competency(27%), and financial competency(7.7%). Second, in terms of content on the consumer's citizenship competency, little attention was paid to consumer rights, revealing an imbalance between responsibilities and rights. Third, despite its importance, the "utilization of information and communications technology" in transaction competency, and "consumer participation" in citizenship competency are insufficiently covered in the home economics. Fourth, social studies was the subject that most extensively covered the content of consumer competency. In terms of scope, home economics dealt with most of the sub-fields. Fifth, even when the same content of consumer competency was covered, it was presented differently by subject. Sixth, there was a lack of connection between components of consumer competency-knowledge, attitude, and practice, with a disproportionately high emphasis on knowledge. In conclusion, this study concluded that consumer education content of middle school subjects is insufficient to enhance consumer competency.