• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.147-158
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate research trends of Japanese earth science education published in Chigakukyouiku by the Japan Society of Earth Science Education. A total of 129 articles published in the Journal between 1998 and 2003 were analyzed. The Journal published six issues each year, and each issue contained about four articles that were fewer numbers than Journal of the Korean Earth Science Society's. About Sixty percent of the papers were written by a single author. Analyzing the content of the papers, it was noted that the most articles were geology-related (41.1%) followed by oceanography-related (1.6%) and general science education papers (1.6%). In summary, the characteristics of research trends of Japanese earth science education are as follows: First, the most topics of the papers were related to environmental sciences including earthquake, volcano, and tsunami. This trend seems natural because Japanese schools are situated within the reach of these environmental events. Second, there found many papers that dealt with geological field trip or fossils adjacent to the local community. Third, there were several papers that established a relationship between environmental education and earth science education. Obviously these papers tried to incorporate environmental education into earth science education at the school level. Last but not least, there found an effort to introduce computer into earth science education as an innovative educational method, for example, 'computer and earth science education'.