The purpose of this study is to develop a descriptive paper test item which can evaluate elementary school students' HGA (scientific Hypothesis Generating Ability) and to propose a counting formula that can easily assess student's HGA objectively and quantitatively. To make the test item can possibly evaluate all the students from 6th graders to 3rd graders, the 'rabbit's ear' item is developed. Developed test item was distributed to four different elementary schools in Seoul. Total 280 students who were in the 6th grade solved the item. All the students' reponses to the item were analyzed. Based on the analyzed data evaluation factors and evaluation criteria are extracted to design a Hypothesis Generating ability Quotient (HGQ). As the result 'Explican's Degree of Likeness' and 'Hypothesis' Degree of Explanation' are chosen as evaluation factors. Also precedent evaluation criteria were renewed. At first, Explican's Degree of Likeness evaluation criterion was turned four levels into three levels and each content of evaluation criterion is also modified. Secondly, new evaluation factor 'Hypothesis' Degree of Explanation' was developed as combined three different evaluation criteria, 'level of explican', 'number of explican' and 'structure of explican'. This evaluation factor was designed to assess how the suggested hypothesis can elaborately explain the cause of one phenomenon. Newly designed evaluation factors and evaluation criteria can assess HGA more in detail and reduce the scoring discordant through the markers. Lastly, Developed counting formula is much more simple than precedent Kwon's equation for evaluating the Hypothesis Explanation Quotient. So it could help easily distinguish one student's scientific hypothesis generating ability.

This study aims to analyze types of science museum worksheets developed by elementary pre-service teachers and their perspectives on the requirements and necessity of science museum worksheets. As analysis subjects, this study selected 38 kinds of worksheets and reports developed by 114 elementary pre-service teachers who were in the third year of university of education. In this study, the science museum selected for elementary pre-service teachers to develop worksheets was a national science museum, composed of 'Nature and Discovery Museum', 'Science Technology and Industry Museum' and 'Children's Museum', which was located in a metropolitan city and opened in 2013. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; Firstly, as a result of analyzing the science museum worksheets developed by elementary pre-service teachers, this study found out that the experience type with hands-on and observation techniques applied was most, and as an approach method, direct manipulation, look-in observation and close observation were most. However, although these science museum worksheets were experience-oriented, many of them were survey-oriented ones that suggested too many questions through various exhibits. Secondly, as a result of analyzing requirements of science museum worksheets elementary pre-service teachers thought and described through the word tree of NVivo 10, this study extracted 10 kinds of main themes, out of which the requirement, 'A limited amount of activity should be required', showed the highest frequency. Thirdly, as a result of analyzing the necessity of science museum worksheets elementary pre-service teachers thought and described through the word tree of NVivo 10, this study extracted 9 kinds of main themes, out of which the opinion, 'It is required to help students check an exhibit which may be passed by', was most.

This paper examines the effects on academic achievement, scientific process skills and affective domain for elementary students learning the 'Chicken life cycle' through traditional science class versus a smart media based STEAM approach. Students designed and built a hatching jar and created a smart media content for chickens using time-lapse technology. This STEAM program was developed to improve their scientific concepts of animals over nine periods of classes using integrated education methods. The experimental study took place in the third grade of public schools in a province, with the STEAM approach applied in 2 classes (44 students) and the traditional discipline approach implemented in 2 classes (46 students). The STEAM education significantly influenced the improvement of academic achievements, basic scientific process skills and affective domain. The results suggest that this STEAM approach for teaching scientific concepts of animal life cycles has the performance in terms of knowledge, skills and affect gain achievements in elementary school students' learning when compared to a traditional approach. Moreover, the smart media based STEAM program is helpful to lead students to engage in integrated problem-solving designs and learning science and technology.

We examined the inquiry activities in the material domain of the elementary science textbooks and experimental workbooks based on 2009 revised curriculum. The analysis framework was SEP (Science and Engineering Practices) - 'Asking questions and defining problems', 'developing and using models', 'planning and carrying out investigations', 'analyzing and interpreting data', 'using mathematics and computational thinking', 'constructing explanations and designing solutions', 'engaging in argument from evidence', and 'obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information'. Sub-SEP of each grade band were also used. The results showed that the $3^{rd}{\sim}5^{th}$ grade science textbooks and workbooks mainly emphasized 'make observations and/or measurements', 'represent data in tables and/or various graphical displays', or 'use evidence to construct or support an explanation or design a solution to a problem' among around 40 sub-SEP. In the case of the inquiry activities for $6^{th}$ grade, majority of sub-SEP included were also only 'collect data to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence to answer scientific questions or test design solutions', 'analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena' or 'construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources'. The type of 'asking questions and defining problems', 'using mathematics and computational thinking' or 'obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information' were little found out of 8 SEP. Educational implications were discussed.

The purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between types and sources of background knowledges of elementary preteachers' questions about astronomy contents in the elementary science text books. Data were extracted from the preteachers' classes established in a university of education. The results are as follows. First, right background knowledges of questions were found in about 58% questions, wrong background knowledges 15%, and no background knowledges 26%. Second, it was found that 'school' as a source of background knowledges was found in 29% questions, 'friend' 21%, 'internet' 14%, 'book reading' 12%, 'others' 9%, 'TV' 7%, 'institute' 4%. In case of the type that right background knowledges have casual relation or correlation with question contents, 'book reading' and 'TV' sources rate increased, but 'internet' and 'others' decreased when compared to total questions. In the type which background knowledges are right and did not have casual relation or correlation with question contents, 'internet' source rate increased and 'friend' decreased. In case of the type that wrong background knowledges do not have casual relation or correlation with question contents, 'friend' and 'TV' sources rate increased, but 'school' and 'book reading' decreased. The type which background knowledges are right and did not have casual relation or correlation with question contents, 'internet' source rate increased and 'friend' decreased. In case of the type of no background knowledges, 'TV' and 'institute' source rate increased, but 'internet' and 'book reading' decreased. Third, the questions in 'Earth and Moon' unit have little background knowledges. The questions in 'solar system and stars' have background knowledges with no relation to the questions. Especially, in the unit 'changes of seasons', right background knowledges were found in more than half questions, but the contents of questions and background knowledges were not connected scientifically.

This study aims to investigate how elementary teachers use teachers' guide in preparation for science lessons. First, different uses of teacher's guide were analyzed. Second, how and why teachers use each section in teacher's guide were analyzed. For the study, 24 elementary school teachers were interviewed in depth. The semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted individually and/or in small group, and additional interviews were held when necessary. The results showed that most of the teachers used teacher's guide only substitutionally, and some teachers rarely use teacher's guide, while only 3 out of 24 teachers used teacher's guide in detail. The reasons that teachers used the teacher's guide substitutionally or rarely were that most science lessons include experiments, and science textbook itself provides enough information for preparation of science lessons for 3rd and 4th grade students. The results also revealed that only few teachers read the general guideline in teacher's guide. Some sections of teacher's guide were not used. The sections that many teachers used were the aims of lesson, the learning system of the unit, background knowledge, flow of lesson, learning contents and activities. This study specifically examined the actual use of teacher's guide for lesson preparation and discussed implications for the development of more helpful teacher's guide.

The purpose of this study was to analyze pre-school teachers' observation experience and their pre and post degrees of preferences in observing underground and water living things, fungus, insects, flowerless plants and sea lives. Based on the analysis, their pre-observation experience in living things were insects, ocean creatures, underground living things, flowerless plants, fungus and water living things in order. The degree of preferences in flowerless plans based on their gender, the female pre-service teachers showed higher scores than the average in both pre and post test. The male, however, responded higher scores in underground living things in both tests. Their background such as liberal arts or science or arts and physical major affected their preferences scores in water living things, insects and flowerless plans in the post test, and the science major pre-service teachers showed the highest degree of preferences in insects among the liberal arts, science or arts and physical major pre-teachers in the post test. In conclusion, there were different degree of their preferences affected by the pre observation experience, gender difference, their present majors such as the liberal arts, science or arts and physical major, the categories of living things but not in their high school background such as liberal arts or science.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the elementary teachers' conceptions on the inquiry activity about 'make a fossil model' focusing the 6th, 7th, 2007 revised, and 2009 revised elementary science textbook. This study is intended to find causes of teachers' conceptions and to derive educational implications. We have analyzed questionnaires which were collected from 77 elementary school teachers. It was carried out about comparisons actual fossil with fossil model in each step of the inquiry activity, the lesson goal, the thought for changes of the inquiry activity, the improvement of the inquiry and conception related fossil. Teachers have a general understanding about the contents of the inquiry activity but some of them have partially incorrect understanding. And they emphasize the understanding of the concept on lesson goal. It is necessary to improve inquiry activity reflecting teachers' thinking about the merit and weaknesses. There was not statistically difference in understanding of fossil related concepts according to teachers' career, teaching or training experience. Through this research, there is a need to improve a textbook, a guide book, a teachers' training. So, teachers who have professionalism about science textbook be able to teach students.

The purpose of this study was to analyze affective characteristics and the demands of elementary science gifted students on gifted educations in urban and rural areas. The subjects were 196 science gifted students. The survey questionnaires were consisted of self-esteem, interests in science, scientific attitudes, and demands regarding gifted classes. The results of this study were as follows. First, self-esteem and interests in science, particularly interests toward science, toward science learning, toward science related careers, in urban gifted students were higher than those in rural areas. Whereas interests toward science activities and science anxiety of science gifted students in rural areas were significantly higher than those in urban area. Furthermore, scientific attitudes of science gifted students in urban area were higher than rural those in open-mindedness, critical-mindedness, voluntariness, creativity, whereas science gifted students in rural areas were higher than urban those in cooperation. Second, for the analysis on demands regarding class contents and methods, 'teaching content that challenges and exciting stimuli' of science gifted students in rural areas were significantly higher than those in urban area. Third, for the analysis on demands regarding educational environments, 'satisfaction with class materials provided by gifted classes' of gifted students in urban area were higher than those in rural area.

The purpose of this study was to investigate implications of self-directed learning experiments in elementary science education through understanding elementary school students' awareness of their experiences in self-directed learning experiments. Twenty students joined the school science club voluntarily and conducted self-directed learning experiments. We collected data through observation of the experiments, interviews, and questionnaires. The students who participated in the club showed high satisfaction with self-directed learning experiments. The participants were aware that their scientific interest and knowledge, and the confidence in conducting experiments were increased. The students felt positive about the inquiry process of conducting self-directed learning experiments with their own subjects. They also felt a sense of achievement in attempting their experiments in defiance of several failures. The participants realized that the self-directed inquires led to increased declarative and procedural knowledge of science. The students stated that they had some difficulties in coping with the different results contrary to expectations and preparing laboratory materials and instruments. Nonetheless, they showed the promotion of their scientific literacy during overcoming those difficulties. We suggest that self-directed learning experiments can be a more effective way in science learning to make students experience the nature of science than existing school experiments. This can be implemented through a creative experience activities such as science clubs.

In this study, modeling pedagogies were employed to re-design and teach the unit of Seasonal Changes in the $6^{th}$ grade science curriculum. The effects of the modeling-based program were investigated in both the conceptual and affective domains using an approach of mixing quantitative and qualitative techniques. The result showed that the students in the modeling-based science inquiry classroom gained a higher mean score in a conceptual achievement test than their counterparts in a traditional science classroom. The number of the conceptual resources activated to explain the causes of the seasons, as well as the types of student explanations developed through the combination of the resources activated, were greater in the modeling-based classroom. The modeling-based science inquiry was also effective in improving student attitudes toward science lessons. It was revealed, however, that the students experienced both positive and negative epistemic feelings during the modeling-based science inquiry. Implications of these findings for science education and relevant research were suggested and discussed.