• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.10 no.2 s.26
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• pp.89-102
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• 2006

The present article is dedicated to discussing the methods of teaching schoolchildren to solve creative problems. A few types of Olympiad problems were chosen as a didactic content of the article. The relevance of the choice receives proper grounding. Explanations are followed by examples from pedagogic practice. The article was written for the use of school teachers and educationalists that are researching the problem of improving creative thinking with schoolchildren.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.271-281
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• 2008

Quarter a century ago, I founded the Colorado Mathematical Olympiad. The Colorado Mathematical Olympiad is the largest essay-type in-person mathematical competition in the United States, with 600 to 1,000 participants competing annually for prizes. In this article, I explain what it is, how it works, give examples of problems and solutions, and share with the reader careers of some of the Olympiad's winners.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.19 no.2 s.30
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• pp.26-47
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• 2006

Environmental problems became bigger and widely known among all parts of the society in the last decade. The broad and sustainable study of the environment is the most basic and primary solution to the problems. For this reason, International Environmental Project Olympiad (INEPO) was organized in 1993. Many countries have participated in this organization. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to revitalize the environmental education and to realize the value of environmental education by making students aware of the environmental problems through the INEPO and Korean Environmental Olympiad (KEO). To achieve these goals, we conducted as follows First, we introduced aims, major contents and rules of the INEPO and grasped problems related to the applying method of students who want to participate in the INEPO in Korea. In addition, we introduced both results of domestic contest for participating in the 14th INEPO and of the 14th INEPO itself opened in 2006. Second, we analysed participants' themes according to project types such as environment-biology, environment-chemistry, environment-physics, environment-health and environment-social sciences from Previous INEPOs. Third, we had interviews with several participants to gather their thoughts on motivation and impression of participation, the reason of theme selection, and the method of environmental education in school, by visiting each booth of INEPO. Finally, we suggested sustainable methods of the KEO to revitalize environmental education, and proposed various methods to revitalize the environmental education through the KEO and INEPO in the primary and secondary schools.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.719-730
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• 2004

The International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) was established and its foundation were published by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society (EAAS), in order to spread astronomical knowledge, promote international cooperation in astronomical education area, and recognize the importance of astronomy in far-reaching field of science and human culture. In 1996, the first IAO was held at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of sciences (RAS) located in the north Caucasus of Russia. Since then, it has been held every year. Here, we will describe the present status of the International Astronomy Olympiad, its major results by year, related institutions, organizations, and the main regulations regarding its operation. In order to measure the levels of scientific knowledge and thinking abilities, we develop a rubric to analyze the characteristics of problems in the IAO with regards to cognitive aspects of scientific inquiry. These problems require high levels of content knowledge and scientific method knowledge. Also high order thinking abilities and high levels of convergent thinking skills, instead of divergent, are needed to solve these problems. Thus, the problems presented are set a high difficulty. Through this analysis, we can understand main purpose of the International Astronomy Olympiad and explore the future direction of the Korea Astronomy Olympiad.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.73-83
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• 2009

Mathematics Olympiad aims to identify and encourage students who have superior ability in mathematics, to enhance students' understanding in mathematics while stimulating interest and challenge, to increase learning motivation through self-reflection, and to speed up the development of mathematical talent. Participating mathematical competition, students are going to solve a variety of types of mathematical problems and will be able to enlarge their understanding in mathematics and foster mathematical thinking and creative problem solving ability with logic and reasoning. In addition, parents could have an opportunity valuable information on their children's mathematical talents and guidance of them. Although there should be presenting diversified mathematical problems in competitions, the real situations is that resent most mathematics Olympiads present mathematical problems which narrowly focus on types of solving problems. In order to diversifying types of problems in mathematics Olympiads and making mathematics popular, this study will discuss a Olympiad for problem solving ability, a Olympiad for exploring mathematics, a Olympiad for task solving ability, and a mathematics fair, etc.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.109-121
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• 2008

The International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) was established by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society in order to disseminate astronomical knowledge, promote international cooperation in astronomical education area and recognize the importance of astronomy in far-reaching field of science and human culture. The first IAO competition was held at the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences located in the north Caucasus of Russia in 1996. Since then, it has been held every year. This paper describes the present status of the IAO main regulations regarding its operation and major results by year, related institutions, and organizations. We created a scientific inquiry framework to analyze past IAO problems in the recognitive aspect in order to measure levels of the scientific knowledges and the scientific thinking abilities. Through this analysis, we can understand the current status of the IAO, and examine the future direction of Korea Astronomy Olympiad. Also, we can make preparation for the IAO competition and the education of delegates.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.89-101
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• 2011

The International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) initiated by the Thailand Astronomical Society in 2007 is an annual competition for high school students. One of its aim is to enhance the development of international exchange in the field of school education in astronomy and astrophysics. This paper first provides the overview of the IOAA in terms of key regulations based on its statutes, history and current status. Secondly, the published syllabus of the IOAA is used for content analysis according to subject areas regarding the exam questions of the IOAA in theoretical, observational and data analysis parts from 2007 to 2010. Also, a scientific inquiry framework is applied to the same questions for assessment based on scientific inquiry in the cognitive aspect with two sub-classes of scientific knowledge and scientific reasoning. Among a dozen astronomy subject areas listed on the syllabus, the theoretical part of the IOAA makes more frequent use of the Sun, the solar system, properties of stars, and concept of time. In content knowledge, a factor of scientific knowledge, the IOAA questions, especially in the theoretical part have a lesser degree in difficulty than the IAO (International Astronomy Olympiad) exam questions for the same period whose degree in difficulty is comparable to college level. With regard to scientific reasoning, the IOAA questions tend to involve convergent rather than divergent thinking. Lastly, in light of these findings, discussions are given on the outcome of Korean participation in the previous IOAAs and ways to help better in preparing Korean students for future astronomy Olympiads.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.3_4 no.1
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• pp.139-147
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• 1994

The "First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics" is an annual competition in research projects in physics for secondary (high) school pupils organized by the Institute od Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences. This year the second competition of that type has been completed. Pupils from 36 countries took part in the first two competitions, what certainly should be treated as a great success. We have organized the above competition for the following reasons. During our contacts with secondary school pupils we discovered that some of them try to perform different physical investigations by themselves: at schools, in some laboratories and even at home. Then we decided to organize the National Competition in Pupils' Research Projects in Physics and next - after gaining some experience in the national scale - the international competition "First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics". Our aim was to recognize the effort of the pupils, give them a chance to compare their own achievements with the achievements of their colleagues and organize their work. One should underline that the "First Step" refers to quite different features (long term research work) of the pupils than the International Physics Olympiad (solving well formulated physics problems). The prizes in our competition are not typical. Instead of buying some items for our winners we decided to invite them to our Institute for a research stay. In our opinion in case of people whose hobby is physics such a form of prize is more valuable and more instructive than anything else. The aim of this article is to discuss a genesis of the competition, to present conditions of participation and to discuss the results.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.13-23
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• 1991

The importance of tourism was recognized through the olympiad of 1988. Especially visual impacts like uniform make it more important to develop proper service system. Thus, the object of this study is to provide a renewal uniform policy of Korean restaurant. Here, the theoretical knowledge is applied into actual conditions, and found many problems as a result. 1. There are no recognition of the importance of uniforms. 2. No effort has been made in creating image suitable for traditional restaurants. 3. There has been no uniqueness and utility. 4. The uniform colors have not been coordinated working environments. 5. There have been some problems concerning uniform managements. These problems led to an idea of making new uniforms, and actual products has been producted as a part of the study. The products have focused an functional utility and tradition of Korean costumes. I hope my endeavor will be helpful for traditional Korean restaurants and developing of uniform design.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.3_4 no.1
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• pp.148-157
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• 1994

"Is a given boy or girl gifted in physics\ulcorner" That is a very complicated question and it is not easy to answer it as creativity and talents have many aspects. The lecture is devoted to analysis of several of them. In particular, we shall discuss the following points: 1) "Poets in physics". Some pupils have a seldom ability to create very beautiful, intellectual constructions starting from very few assumptions. Any building consists of commonly used bricks or other building elements, any book contains only several tens of commonly used letters or other graphic elements, also any painting may be created by appropriate use of several colors. Some buildings are nice, some not. Some paintings are beautiful, some not. Certain pupils, by appropriate use of several simple laws, are able to create beautiful constructions. They are like poets writing poetry by using several tens of letters known to everybody. 2) "Free hunters". Some pupils solve even very typical problems in a very untypical ways. Their independence in thinking is especially valuable. 3) "Small discoverers". Even very rich syllabuses do not contain whole physics. Some pupils e.g. during solving problems discover laws or rules that are absent in the syllabus. For example, some of them are able to make use of symmetry or dimensional analysis without any preliminary knowledge of that matter. The considerations are illustrated with different examples taken from physics or mathematics. The subject is very large and, of course, we are not able to present the problem in a complete way.o present the problem in a complete way.