• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.217-235
• /
• 2022

This study aimed to analyze the changes in the physics curriculum of elementary schools over the past years and to discuss the issues faced by the science curriculum for elementary education prior to the next curriculum revision. We analyzed changes in the elements of the contents from the 7th curriculum to the 2015 revised curriculum and reviewed studies conducted after the revision in 2015. Additionally, three professors majoring in physics education discussed the results of the curriculum analysis. The result indicates that content of the physics curriculum for elementary education was generally reduced after the 7th curriculum. Specifically, difficult concepts were omitted or designated to a higher school level. Concerns related to the science curriculum pertain to the content adequacy and difficulty of the current curriculum, its relationship with mathematics, connection between the Nuri curriculum and the integrated curriculum for the 1st and 2nd grades, and the achievement standard predicate problem.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.33 no.3
• /
• pp.479-490
• /
• 2014

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.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.33 no.3
• /
• pp.597-606
• /
• 2014

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.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.115-124
• /
• 2002

The purpose of this research is to analyze the contents related to environmental education(EE) in the elementary school textbooks for the following areas: well-balanced EE, and development of EE curriculum/teachers' guide in elementary school level. For the purpose of this analysis, elementary school teachers, education administrators and EE specialists were involved. Eleven content areas of EE, namely: natural environment, artificial environment, population, industrialization, natural resources, pollution, environmental conservation, environment sanitation, environment ethics, environmentally sound and sustainable development(ESSD), and daily li(e as a consumer, were analyzed. The results of the analysis are as follows: 1. There are total 1,140 contents related to EE in the elementary school textbooks of 7th Korea National Curriculum. 2. The textbooks of grade 6 contain the most number of EE contents, while the least number is in the textbooks of grade 3. 3. The subject that includes EE contents equally in its textbooks is social studies, and the subjects that relate a lot to EE are Korean language, science, and social studies respectively. 4. The content areas that are included a lot in textbooks are' natural environment', 'pollution', and' environmental conservation' respectively, while the contents of 'population','industrialization', 'ESSD' are included to a lesser degree. The content area most frequently mentioned in the textbooks is 'pollution', and the number of the contents are increasing along with the grade level. 5. Generally, the content areas of 'population', 'industrialization', and 'natural resources' are reflected in the textbooks to a lesser degree than others. 'Industrialization' is not included in the textbooks of grade 2, while 'population' is not included in ones of grade 4. According to the result, more concern about balanced EE in content areas is needed at the elementary school level. Similar studies tot K and secondary school levels are needed. The developmental study of EE guide book and teacher training for teaching EE using the book are also recommended.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.214-225
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine the content relevance of the 7th national primary science curriculum and textbooks. To fulfill the purpose of the study, we 1) analyzed the 7th national science curriculum of Korea, Californian science standards, the national science curriculum of England and Japan, and current Korean and Japanese science textbooks, 2) conducted a nationwide survey to gather opinions from students, teachers, and professors of teachers colleges about the relevance of the science curriculum and textbooks. Main findings of this study are as follows: First, the science contents at each grade level should be determined by the students' characteristics, not by an equal portion rule among physics, chemistry, biology and earth science. Second, the excessive overlapping and repetition of contents due to the spiral curriculum should be avoid. Third, the number of topics at each grade level should be reduced, and the similar topics and themes should be integrated for students' deeper understanding. Fourth, the number of science concepts and activities should be reduced to an appropriate level considering the time allotment for science classes, teachers workload, laboratory conditions, etc. Fifth, differentiated curriculum, such as in-depth and supplementary course, should be described not in science contents, but in teaching and learning strategy.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.558-569
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this research is to minimize the learning deficiency on science subject in changeover from the 7th education curriculum to the next curriculum which was noticed in 2007. We investigated the contents overlapped or omitted in science contents organization between the two curriculums; moved contents to upper or lower grade, deleted contents, enlarged contents and reduced contents. Also we found that the deficiency will be occurred for the students who entered school in 2006 and 2007 in elementary school. To minimize the learning deficiency in the changeover, we must consider the following points. (1) We need to promote the teachers' comprehension about the learning deficiency and supplementary instruction through the teacher training program before carrying out the next curriculum. (2) We must add the measures minimizing the learning deficiency to the teachers' guide and resources which are used in encouragement of learning and teachers' training. (3) We must develop the instructing materials to supplement the learning deficiency for the students who entered school in 2006 and 2007. As practicing above points, we will be able to reduce time loss in studying and teaching the same contents and to supplement the omitted contents.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.22 no.7
• /
• pp.811-821
• /
• 2013

A purpose of this study was to provide the helpful information about operation of revised science curriculum by analyzing many contents about acid rain with various aspects, which was written in science textbook of 10 year according to the 7th national curriculum. The results show that there was the lack of educational systemicity among elementary school, middle school, and high school science curriculum and the lack of explanation for occurrence and standard level of acid rain, pH 5.6. And It could be categorized the effect of acid rain into four groups and experiment or experiment activities into three groups.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.551-557
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the questions in the 'Matter' units of elementary science textbooks under the 7th curriculum. For the analysis, a total of 338 questions were extracted from 15 units. Six criteria (recalling, recognizing, predictive, applied, divergent, and evaluative question) were reconstructed for textbook question analysis based on Blosser(1973)'s question category system for science. The results were as follows. First, there were more closed (recalling, recognizing, predictive, or applied) questions (72.2%) than open (divergent or evaluative) questions (27.8%) in elementary science textbooks. Second, cognitive-memory (recalling or recognizing) question type was the most frequently asked in all grade levels. Open (divergent or evaluative) questions increased according to grade level whereas convergent (predictive or applied) questions decreased. Third, question types were applied based on the characteristics of each unit rather than on children's developmental characteristics. Educational implications were discussed based on the results.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.138-148
• /
• 2003

This study was to analyze how elementary school science textbooks explain dissolution and to examine the patterns of elementary school teachers' conceptions on dissolution and the teaching practices on dissolution of elementary school teachers. According to the result of the textbook analysis, the textbooks based on the 7th curriculum didn't explain dissolution very differently from those based on the 6th curriculum. The contents dealing with dissolution in the textbooks of 7th curriculum became difficult gradually as the year went up, but the connected organization of the contents made students learn it easily. For example, in order to learn dissolution introduced first in the 3rd year 2nd semester textbook, students would tell soluble substance in water from insoluble substance in water as they put powdered substance in water. In the 5th year 1st semester textbook students were supposed to acquire the knowledge related to dissolution through the designed activities such as comparing solubility produced by different solvents and defining a solvent, a solute, dissolution, and a solution. In addition, teachers' guide for 5th year 1st semester textbook elucidated the principle of dissolution using attraction concept that was scientific. The result of the survey on teachers showed that 90% of elementary school teachers understood the dissolution of salt in water just as millet particles' filling the space between bean particles and they responded that they demonstrated millet particles' filling the space between been particles when they taught the dissolution of salt in water. When it comes to teachers who had the right idea on dissolution as the attraction conception, understanding was one thing and teaching was another, because they often instructed dissolution as the space conception in the real teaching.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.289-296
• /
• 2002

The purpose of this study is to analyze STS contents in the elementary school science textbooks developed under the 7th national curriculum. Major findings from the analyses are as follows: (1) The Percentage of STS contents included is 26% by the number of pages, and 40% by the lesson hour, Higher proportions of the STS contents are found in the domains of ‘energy’ and ‘material’. By grade level, the coverage of 5th grade textbooks is relatively low. (2) Most STS topics are related to science rather than technology or society. (3) In many cases, STS contents are used in the whole processes of a lesson. (4) Most activities are 'group activity' or 'experiment.observation'. There are few activities of 'role playing', 'spot study' or 'interview'. These results indicate that recent STS education trends are reflected on the revised textbooks well. However, it is suggested that some improvement is needed, such as diversification of topic or activity.