• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.492-501
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• 2006

Gender differences in TIMSS 2003 science achievement by item type, benchmark, and content area were examined by producing a Gender Differences Index (GDI) in this study. International trends identified that male students performed better than female students in TIMSS 2003 science achievement in all types of items. The overall achievement of Korean male students was better than Korean female students, especially in multiple-choice type items. Male students outperformed females in three benchmarks, including advanced, high, and intermediate international benchmark, but they did not outperform females in the low international benchmark when gender differences of the international average as well as the Korean average were taken into account. The results of the analysis of the international average and the Korean average by content area showed that gender differences were the greatest in earth science and smallest in chemistry. In life science, female students excelled when considering the international average while male students excelled when considering the average of Korean students' performance. In addition, the number of items in which male students outperformed females was larger in both factual knowledge and the conceptual understanding domain. Implications for reducing gender differences in science achievement in Korea based on the results were provided.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.520-530
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate students' understanding of the terms presented on the information board in the Jinan-Muju National Geopark. To this end, a survey was conducted with 219 students (147 elementary, 41 middle, and 31 high school students) to determine the level of their perceptions of the geopark, and of the usefulness of the information board, and their understanding of the terms presented on the information boards of the National Geopark. To determine the students' understanding of terms, 10 representative information boards were selected and the entire content was converted into text. Afterwards, 256 key terms were extracted from the text through discussions with three experts, and these terms were presented to students to grasp their level of understanding. The results were as follows: First, the level of students' perceptions about the geopark was very low, so publicity and educational approaches are needed. Second, students were not interested in the information board and had a low level of understanding owing to the large amount of information and reading difficulties. Third, among the 256 terms, the number of terms that students found difficult to understand tended to decrease with increasing school grade: 80 for elementary school students, 53 for middle school students, and 31 for high school students. The reason the students had difficulty in understanding terms was that elementary school students had not yet learned the terms in the curriculum, whereas middle and high school students have difficulty understanding technical terms and Chinese characters. Therefore, the information board in the geopark will need to be easily translated into Chinese characters or additional explanations of technical terms need to be provided so that visitors can understand the concepts more easily.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.57-72
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of Creative Geo Educamp-the thematic trips with geoscientist, donation of KIGAM's intellectual properties. It was carried out twice and each time took professional development programs for 16 hours. There were 35 secondary science teachers (2010. 7.6.-8.) and 31 elementary teachers (2010. 7.20.-22.). This program was designed to contribute the public education by using intellectual properties of KIGAM. Textbooks and kits were developed for the creative activities according to 2009 Curriculum Revision and they were donated as educational materials. The survey showed that the participants have a high satisfaction of the textbooks and kits developed. Its figures are 4.45 of secondary science teachers and 4.8 of elementary teachers out of 5 points.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.13-29
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• 2023

This study aims to provide a theoretical examination of symmetry and its implications for science education. For this purpose, first, we examined the way of thinking of Western science in general through ancient Greek scholars. Second, we divided the perception of symmetry into ancient and modern times. Third, we draw out the implications for science education. The results of this study show that, first, the way of thinking in Western science is 'abstraction', which began with Parmenides and was established by Plato. Second, the ancient perception of symmetry is symmetry as beautiful proportions and harmony based on abstraction, and the modern perception of symmetry is symmetry as an invariant perspective based on abstraction that seeks to find constancy in change. We examined Eratosthenes' experiment to measure the circumference of the earth as an example of ancient symmetry, and Galilean relativity or transformation as examples of modern symmetry. Third, the implications for science education are as follows. Awareness of symmetry can help educate students about the nature of science, as it is a central theme that runs through ancient and modern science. Second, the Eratosthenes' experiment and Galilean relativity or transformations are not represented in the 2022 revised curriculum, but could support understanding of science and key competencies and concepts. Finally, an integrated approach to science education centered on symmetry can have a positive impact on scientific attitudes and interest.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.10
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• pp.173-183
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to develop students' creativity and artistic sensitivity by developing a convergence education program that links various subjects, including mathematics, science, and art based on design. Design is done in almost every human activity that pursues beauty and implements cultural value through patterns and images. We have developed three programs for elementary school students and two programs for middle school students, taking into consideration the achievement standards and curriculum content appropriate for the 2015 revised curriculum. It was assessed by a panel of five educational experts during the development and demonstration courses to evaluate the feasibility of the development program. The development program can enhance the design literacy and design sense of elementary and junior high school students and can be used convergent educational contents that can be applied in the free-semester system activities of junior high school. Through this program, adolescents who will lead the future design society will be able to acquire the sense of design, literacy, and design ability as design consumers and producers.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.312-323
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• 2022

This study began with the hypothesis of whether "solar radiation" and "terrestrial radiation" can be replaced by "visible radiation" and "infrared radiation", respectively. To this end, we investigated the perceptions of high school students who completed the Earth Science I course through a questionnaire to reveal how they perceived each concept. We also analyzed the descriptions and illustrations of textbooks that may have affected their perceptions. All of the students who participated in the questionnaire recognized solar radiation as radiation emitted only in the visible light region. About 35% of the students recognized convection, conduction, and latent heat as energy transfer by radiation in the Earth's heat budget. By analyzing six types of Earth Science I textbooks in the 2015 revised curriculum, we observed that two types introduced the terms "shortwave radiation" and "longwave radiation" but had no explanation for them, while the other two described solar radiation as "radiation mainly in the visible light region" or "radiation in short wavelengths". Regarding solar and terrestrial radiation in the last two types, there was no explanation for the wavelength regions, or ambiguous terms such as "short wavelength" and "long wavelength" were used. In addition, the two textbooks contained some errors in the illustration of the energy budget. Considering that textbooks described solar and terrestrial radiation without defining the exact terms for shortwave and longwave radiation, learners are likely to recognize solar and terrestrial radiation as visible and infrared radiation, respectively. This finding implies that vague statements or errors in textbooks can cause or reproduce students' misconceptions. The discussion in this study is expected to be used as a helpful reference material for teaching and learning processes regarding the Earth's radiation equilibrium and heat budget, and thereby contribute to proposing reasonable description plans for future textbook writing.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.461-479
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• 1997

The concept map is the diagram of two dimensions which hierachically arrays main concepts from those of the textbook and shows their relations. The research analyzed five of the ten high school earthscience textbooks approved by the Minister of Education according to the 6th reformed curriculum in 1995, one of which this research chose to make out the concept maps. The chapter [III. the Universe] contains the outer space of the earth presents new concepts about the stars and the universe and introduces the latest research in astronomy. This study changed textbook contents into Novak's concept map, searched for concepts requiring complement for learners in oder to obtain concepts from those of the textbook and pointed out problems on the basis of that result still better concept map is set up. We have the following conclusions. First, it is necessary to rule out unnecessary small units so as to make more effective understanding and to rearrange the units to have relation to contents. Second, the higher concept and lower concept need to be rearranged systematically in making an array of textbook contents. Third, the concept should have something to do with learners' experences and consciousness by showing learners the real examples relevant to the concept for the link between them.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.365-380
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• 2021

This study aimed to explore the characteristics of scientific observation and reasoning of gifted middle-school students in rock identification. Five rock samples that are considered important as per science textbooks, including igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks, were provided to 19 first-year middle-school students attending a gifted education center. Students were asked to infer the formation process, type, and name of each rock. The results showed that the characteristics of rocks that students primarily paid attention to included color, texture, and structure. Students immediately succeeded in identifying common rocks based on memory; however, meaningful inferences were not made. In case of rocks that students faced difficulty discriminating, significant reasoning processes were revealed through discourse. In addition, although scientific reasoning was properly constructed based on meaningful observations, there were cases wherein rock identification failed. These results will contribute to determining the current level of understanding of middle-school students in rock identification activities and finding ways to provide students with meaningful scientific observation and inference experiences through rock identification in the school field.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.237-251
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• 2020

Issues on climate change we are facing, such as global warming, are very important as it affects our lives directly. To overcome this, efforts to reduce greenhouse gases emissions (e.g., carbon dioxide) are necessary and these efforts should be based on our integrated understanding of carbon cycle. The purpose of this study is to examine the research trend on carbon cycle education and to suggest the value and direction of carbon cycle education for students who will be citizens of the future. We analyzed 52 carbon cycle education related studies collected from academic research databases (RISS, KCI, ERIC, Google Scholar, and others). As a result, we conclude that resources are still limited and more researches on verification and utilization of developed program, development of accurate and comprehensive tools for students' recognition and level assessment, developing educational model or teacher professional development, providing more appropriate curriculum resources, and the use of various topics or materials for carbon cycle education are necessary. Students' comprehensive understanding of the carbon cycle is important to actively react to the changes in the global environment. Therefore, to support such learning opportunities, resources that can be connected to students' daily experiences to improve students' understanding of carbon cycle and replace misconceptions based on the verification of existing programs should be provided in the classroom as well as the curriculum. In addition, sufficient exemplary cases in carbon cycle education including various materials and topics should be provided through professional development to support teachers teaching strategies with carbon cycle.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.390-400
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to propose an improvement plan based on an analysis of the current earth science teacher education curriculum in the department of education in the four fields of teaching profession theory: student-teacher practice, subject lesson education, and subject content education. The following are the conclusions and suggestions of this study. In case of teaching profession theory, too much emphasis is put on pedagogical theory over practical issues, and a problem arises upon completion. Therefore, it is sugguest that teaching profession theory might be completed before subject lesson education to ensure more authentic subjects performing teaching profession. The current term for student-teacher training is too short to understand the whole school system. Current school system does not have any off-job training course or internship system. Therefore, student-teacher training term should be increased by at least $3{\sim}6$ months to play a vital role in the current system. The credit number of subject lesson education is too small compared with subject content education. Consequently, the credit number of subject lesson education should be increased, and more professor majored in subject lesson education should be recruited. Significant deviation between the content of subject content education and that of middle school grade exists, and there is also much difference in the ratio of subject according to university. To get rid of these problems, subject content education should be connected with subject lesson education and appropriate number of credit needs to be assigned to each subject domain.