• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.294-305
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• 2012

Scientific literacy has long been as one of the key goals of science education, and using scientific inquiry in school science has became an important objective to be achieved. The processes of scientific inquiry consist of proposing/developing inquiry question, designing and conducting investigation, collecting, analyzing and interpreting data, and communicating the results. However, most students experience mainly collecting and transforming data in inquiry processes in science class and they are barely exposed to the opportunities of proposing/developing inquiry questions. Middle school earth science preservice teachers participated in this study (N=36) and their abilities of developing inquiry questions were surveyed. Participants' abilities of developing inquiry questions were investigated whether they were enhanced with activities using the Inquiry Questions Development Guide (IQDG). Also, this study was interested in whether there was any relationship between abilities of developing inquiry questions and designing inquiry investigation. The results of this study were as follows; first, the level and preciseness of inquiry questions and its preciseness developed by participating teachers were enhanced after experiencing IQDG. In addition, teachers' dominating inquiry question-types were two: one is a 'relationship-inquiry question' in which students could discover the relationship between results found in the given experimental situations and the other one is a 'why-how inquiry problem' in which students could explore a cause or a process that results in the outcomes. Finally, the higher level of and preciseness the of inquiry questions were identified as an important factor the determined teachers' abilities of designing more logical investigation. A process of proposing/developing inquiry question was identified as one of the most important processes contributing to a success of scientific inquiry investigation.

• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
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• v.65
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• pp.163-187
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to find the implications of Christian education on the relationship between the formation of faith and digital literacy in the Korean society, which is rapidly changing within the fourth Industrial Revolution today through critical conversations on educational contexts. Over the past decade, Korean society has lived in an era of rapid and radical change more than any other time through a new way of life called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Korean church is also facing the reality that it must fulfill its urgent mission to deliver the unchanging truth in an ever-changing era. With this in mind, this study (1) identifies digital literacy as an essential competency requested in the era of the fourth industrial revolution by examining the relationship with congregation's life as well as its definition and contents, (2) discovers educational rationale for the relationship between faith formation and digital literacy by applying educational context of Christian education with attention to the educational efficiency of digital literacy, and (3) finds educational implications of digital literacy by re-conceptualizing the contents, context, role of teachers and students, and evaluation in the context of Christian education. I hope that this study will help Christian education serve for the spread of the Gospel of Christ and the realization of the kingdom of God on this earth through digital media in the future more time-responsively and mission-practically.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.146-158
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• 2021

We are to introduce an example of ESD in connection with SDGs through liberal arts courses opened at the College of Education. We analyzed the awareness of the carbon footprint expressed by 42 preservice teachers in a class designed in connection with SDGs 13 goal, 'climate action'. The pre-service teachers wrote a carbon diet diary, a checklist for the level of practice that emits carbon in daily life, and freely expressed the source and proportion of their carbon emissions through the carbon footprint drawing activity. In items of electricity use, public transportation use, and garbage disposal, the level of practice was positive, but water use was analyzed in a negative way. The pre-service teachers who expressed the carbon footprint in 2-3 items reached a majority, showing limitations in recognizing the carbon emission situation in their daily life. Pre-service teachers will be the main actors of education on the environmental issues of the earth at the school site, and the carbon literacy of pre-service teachers will directly or indirectly affect students. We hope that various ESD programs linked to the 17 SDGs will be developed and applied to the educational field to contribute to sustainable global environmental education.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.717-733
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• 2021

This study is aimed to provide basic data to set the direction of polar literacy education and to raise awareness of the importance of polar research. Elementary, middle, and high school students' perception of the polar region was examined in terms of current status of polar information, impression regarding polar regions, and awareness of related issues. The study included 975 students from nine elementary, middle, and high schools, who responded to 16 questions, including close-ended and open-ended items. The results suggest that students had more experiences regarding the polar region on audiovisual media, but relatively limited learning experiences in school education. The impression they had of the polar region was confined to the monotonous image of a polar bear in crisis, following the melting of the glacier due to global warming. The students formed powerful images by combining scenes they saw in audiovisual media with emotions. In terms of recognizing problems in the polar region, the students were generally interested in creatures, natural environment, and climate change, but their interests varied depending on their school level and their own career path. The students highly valued the scientist's status as agents to address the problems facing the region, and gave priority to global citizenship values rather than practical standards. Based on the results, we suggest the following: introducing and systematizing content focusing on the polar region in the school curriculum, providing a differentiated learning experience through cooperation between scientists and educators, establishing polar literacy based on concepts that are relevant to various subjects, earth system-centered learning approach, setting the direction for follow-up studies and the need for science education that incorporates diverse values.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.734-751
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to prepare basic data to reflect polar literacy education in the school curriculum. The perception about the polar regions, teaching experience, and polar-related cognitive and affective characteristics of teachers were investigated. The survey was conducted among 56 elementary, middle, and high school teachers from schools from 10 major cities and surrounding regions, based on their perceptions of the polar region, current teaching status, polar knowledge, and beliefs and attitudes toward polar region and climate change. Results showed that although teachers' polar information efficacy was low, they positively evaluated the status of educators in resolving polar and climate change problems, and prioritized global citizenship values over practical purposes. The experience of teaching polar region and climate change issues at schools varied across subjects and non-subjects, but showed a passive aspect in teaching development, such as wanting to be provided with consolidated learning materials. On the cognitive aspect, teachers revealed an ambiguous understanding of the mechanisms and processes by which polar change and climate influence each other. On the affective aspect, most teachers showed strong beliefs and attitudes for polar-related issues beyond the school level, but their behavior choices were relatively lower. Based on the results, we propose the following as recommendations: providing opportunities and materials to promote polar knowledge, discovering educational materials in various contexts to form values and attitudes, developing educational materials from polar research materials, identifying misconceptions about polar knowledge among students and teachers, strengthening elementary school teachers' polar literacy, and cultivating positive attitudes and values toward polar issues.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.252-260
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to assist school science class by investigating effective Earth's rotation experiments of districts by school level. The researcher investigated or developed nine experiments for learning Earth's rotation, and conducted and discussed these experiments with 26 elementary school teachers. Each teachers chose an effective Earth's rotation experiment for the district and wrote the reason. As a result, elementary school teachers chose the experiment that is easy to prepare and to do. And elementary school students are interested in the experiments by conducting them on their own. Middle and high school teachers chose more difficult experiments that could be connected with other concepts. University teachers chose effective experiments based on application of knowledge, active exploration, computer literacy, and difficulty.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.209-223
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• 2023

This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a polar literacy education program for elementary and middle school students, and to derive implications for new education to respond to climate change. We developed modular education programs based on the seven principles of polar literacy established by the Polar-ICE team. We divided them into two courses, one emphasizing science concepts and another emphasizing humanities and sociological issues. We then selected and structured detailed programs suitable for the two courses. These two courses were applied to 26 elementary and middle school students for approximately 69 hours in a Saturday science class hosted by the Department of Science Education at a university in Seoul. The 26 students were divided into three groups. Two groups completed the science education program for polar literacy and a humanities and social studies education program for polar literacy, respectively. The third group, the control group, received general science education unrelated to polar literacy. Before and after running the programs, all three groups responded to a polar literacy test and questionnaires that used vocabulary and presented scenes associated with polar regions. The test results were expressed using Wilcoxon signed ranks, which is a non-parametric test method, and improvements made upon completion of the program were analyzed. From a cognitive aspect, all three groups showed improvement after completing the program in the knowledge area; however, the experimental groups showed a greater degree of improvement than the control group, and there was a clear difference in the contents or materials explicitly covered. From an affective aspect, the difference between before and after the program was minor, but the group that focused on humanities and social issues showed a statistically significant improvement. Regarding changes in polar imagery, the two experimental groups tended to diverge from monotonous images to more diverse images compared to the control group. Based on the above results, we suggested methods to increase the effectiveness of polar literacy education programs, the importance of polar literacy as appropriate material for scientific thinking and earth system education, measures to improve attitudes related to the polar region, and the need to link to school curriculums.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.356-370
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• 2008

The study aims to explore sequence of earth science content in elementary school science curriculum in Korea and the U.S.. The analysis is focused on a) general content structure of earth science part; b) concept relationship between grades in the specific field of 'geology'; c) longitudinal connection of concepts and content in 'geology.' The findings are as follows. First, earth science curriculum content in Korea is structured according to sub-scientific disciplines centering on not science concepts but topics or inquiry activities whereas the U.S. curricular content is organized through integrative earth science topics with basic concepts and sub-concepts. Second, it is a common feature that basic concepts are interrelated to sub-concepts in all grades in both countries. However, basic concepts are scattered all over the grades, presented in a linear pattern in Korea while those are provided together in 3rd grade and repeated with extended concepts in a spiral structure in the U.S.. Last, it is not clear how concepts and content are longitudinally connected between grades in Korean curriculum. On the contrary, concepts and content in the U.S. curriculum have a strong longitudinal connection between grades with conceptual hierarchy. Such results indicate that Korean elementary school science curriculum would limit students' comprehensive understanding of science concepts through grades. The study suggests Korean science content should strengthen interrelationship among concepts as well as longitudinal connection between grades, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of science education, 'scientific literacy'.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.647-655
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• 2004

PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2003, the second cycle of PISA, collected data with respect to students' cross-disciplinary problem solving capabilities. Problem solving is defined as the ability to use cognitive processes to solve real cross-disciplinary problems. For the purpose of PISA 2003 assessment, three problem types were chosen: Decision Making, System Analysis and Design, and Trouble Shooting. For this paper a preliminary analysis on Korean students' responses to the PISA 2003 problem-solving items was conducted. The quantitative analysis mainly focused on the difficulties of the PISA 2003 items, while the quantitative analysis dealt with students' responses to open-ended items, which helped understand Korean students' cognitive style and reasoning processes. According to the item analysis result, Korean students had difficulty in representing their answers with pictures or graphs, and interpreting long and complex text. They also showed low achievement with relatively unfamiliar topics or tasks. The paper concluded with several suggestions on improve the quality of science education.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.672-682
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school science gifted students' perceptions about Earth systems and environmental problems. A total of 28 students in the attached center for science gifted education to the university participated in this study. Through the survey, participating students were asked to respond to their self-reported knowledge level, the perceived danger levels, certainty, and tangibility of the selected 13 Earth environmental problems. The DAET (Draw-An-Earth Test)-Checklist were developed and used to analyze the images of the Earth drawn by students. Additional interviews were conducted to clarify the meanings and components of students' image. Results indicated that a total of 80 components regarding Earth systems, 11 components of Earth systems interaction, and 4 components related to Earth systems literacy were identified through the DAET-Checklist and additional interviews. Regarding the students' self-reported knowledge level, they reported that they were most knowledgeable about air pollution, global warming, and water pollution. and they also recognized global warming, air pollution, and water pollution as the most dangerous problem. Results indicated that participants were certain that acid rain, air pollution, and water pollution were problematic, and that acid rain, air pollution, and forest desertification were tangible issues. It is anticipated that this study contributes to understanding the elementary school science gifted students' perceptions toward the selected Earth systems and environmental problems.