• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.40-53
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• 2002

This study was based on the analysis of earth and environmental science items in PISA 2000 data. The purpose of this study was to identify i) gender differences in scientific literacy, ii) item characteristics that favored either female or male, and iii) misconceptions that 15-years-old Korean students have in the field of earth and environmental science. The results revealed significant gender differences. Overall, male students demonstrated higher level of achievement than female students. On the other hand, amongst high ability students, female students outperformed male students in open-constructed items. Female students tended to score higher on items that required long answers or items related to scientific processes, whereas male students outperformed female students in science knowledge or items that required data interpretation. The study also revealed that a majority of Korean students had misconceptions in fundamental earth and environmental science knowledge, such as the direction of earth's axis and equator, and the causes of Greenhouse Effect.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.117-131
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to develop a board game design activity for environmental education and to investigate how it affects high school students' environmental knowledge, environmental literacy, and creative engineering problem solving propensity. Twenty-five freshman and sophomore students belonging to the environmental club participated in this study. The board game activity was designed as 10 class hours lessons based on the engineering design process. The main data source of this study was pre-post students' conceptual maps of the environmental topics (global warming or ecosystem destruction) to measure the background knowledge on the topic. In addition, the environmental literacy measurement questionnaire and the creative engineering problem solving propensity questionnaire were collected before and after the activity. The result shows that the number of environment-related words described by the students on the post-concept map increased compared to the pre-concept map. In addition, the environmental literacy score and the creative engineering problem-solving propensity score increased significantly after performing the board game design activity. The results show that environmental lessons using board game design activities can help student develop various competencies in a good way. As above, research that combines board games and secondary education must be activated, and a new educational method and systemic support for in-service teachers who want to apply it to science classroom is required.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.717-733
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• 2021

This study is aimed to provide basic data to set the direction of polar literacy education and to raise awareness of the importance of polar research. Elementary, middle, and high school students' perception of the polar region was examined in terms of current status of polar information, impression regarding polar regions, and awareness of related issues. The study included 975 students from nine elementary, middle, and high schools, who responded to 16 questions, including close-ended and open-ended items. The results suggest that students had more experiences regarding the polar region on audiovisual media, but relatively limited learning experiences in school education. The impression they had of the polar region was confined to the monotonous image of a polar bear in crisis, following the melting of the glacier due to global warming. The students formed powerful images by combining scenes they saw in audiovisual media with emotions. In terms of recognizing problems in the polar region, the students were generally interested in creatures, natural environment, and climate change, but their interests varied depending on their school level and their own career path. The students highly valued the scientist's status as agents to address the problems facing the region, and gave priority to global citizenship values rather than practical standards. Based on the results, we suggest the following: introducing and systematizing content focusing on the polar region in the school curriculum, providing a differentiated learning experience through cooperation between scientists and educators, establishing polar literacy based on concepts that are relevant to various subjects, earth system-centered learning approach, setting the direction for follow-up studies and the need for science education that incorporates diverse values.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.204-217
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• 2008

This study analyzed the inquiry activities appearing in the astronomy sections of elementary, middle and highschool level science textbooks according to the five essential features of inquiry in the classroom as proposed by the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000), and SAPA (Science-A Process Approach). On the basis of this analysis, it is clear that the science textbook inquiry activities released the limitation to meet the goal of science education, namely scientific literacy, as it has been laid out by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum. This study revealed that the features of scientific inquiry which are most frequently used in the astronomy sections of science textbooks are 'data collection' and 'form explanation', whereas the features of 'oriented-question', 'evaluate explanations' and 'communicate and justify' rarely appeared. The analysis of inquiry activities by SAPA showed that the basic inquiry skills of 'observing', 'communicating' and 'manipulating materials' were used with increasing frequency according to grade level, and the integrated skills of 'investigating', 'creating models', 'interpreting data' and 'experimenting' were more emphasized in the textbooks. Therefore, it is suggested that students be provided with more opportunities to experience all the features of scientific inquiry and scientific processes as envisioned by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum in order to achieve the stated goal of scientific literacy. Science educators should be required to develop new lesson modules which will allow students to experience authentic scientific inquiry. It is crucial for science teachers to reflect upon and develop their understanding and teaching strategies regarding scientific inquiry through professional development programs in teacher education.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.734-751
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to prepare basic data to reflect polar literacy education in the school curriculum. The perception about the polar regions, teaching experience, and polar-related cognitive and affective characteristics of teachers were investigated. The survey was conducted among 56 elementary, middle, and high school teachers from schools from 10 major cities and surrounding regions, based on their perceptions of the polar region, current teaching status, polar knowledge, and beliefs and attitudes toward polar region and climate change. Results showed that although teachers' polar information efficacy was low, they positively evaluated the status of educators in resolving polar and climate change problems, and prioritized global citizenship values over practical purposes. The experience of teaching polar region and climate change issues at schools varied across subjects and non-subjects, but showed a passive aspect in teaching development, such as wanting to be provided with consolidated learning materials. On the cognitive aspect, teachers revealed an ambiguous understanding of the mechanisms and processes by which polar change and climate influence each other. On the affective aspect, most teachers showed strong beliefs and attitudes for polar-related issues beyond the school level, but their behavior choices were relatively lower. Based on the results, we propose the following as recommendations: providing opportunities and materials to promote polar knowledge, discovering educational materials in various contexts to form values and attitudes, developing educational materials from polar research materials, identifying misconceptions about polar knowledge among students and teachers, strengthening elementary school teachers' polar literacy, and cultivating positive attitudes and values toward polar issues.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.252-260
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to assist school science class by investigating effective Earth's rotation experiments of districts by school level. The researcher investigated or developed nine experiments for learning Earth's rotation, and conducted and discussed these experiments with 26 elementary school teachers. Each teachers chose an effective Earth's rotation experiment for the district and wrote the reason. As a result, elementary school teachers chose the experiment that is easy to prepare and to do. And elementary school students are interested in the experiments by conducting them on their own. Middle and high school teachers chose more difficult experiments that could be connected with other concepts. University teachers chose effective experiments based on application of knowledge, active exploration, computer literacy, and difficulty.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.881-901
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• 2011

The science museum in the past satisfied visitors only by interacting them with simple objects and exhibition, while one in modern times was requested to meet the need of visitors in their engagement in educational programs. To meet the visitors' need, the science museum made efforts to train, educate, and assign docents so that they can interact with visitors and serve the educational purpose of visitation. In this study, we analyzed the strengths and weakness of docent training programs from science museums/science centers nationally and internationally, to make implication on how to design a docent training and professional program. Programs from four national and four international science centers/museums were selected as a sample for analysis. Their docent training programs were compared with the data of surveys and interviews and emails from docents and docent managers/evaluators. Artifacts and documents of the docent training programs were also collected and used to construct the validity in analyzing the data, resulting in the well-developed docent training program as the critical one for enriching science museum education. The results included; First, we need to recruit and train docents who interact visitors directly but they need to be differentiated from regular volunteers for promoting science museum education for the purpose of popularization of science. Additionally, Second, we need to develop and run docent training program where docents can experience 'informal learning' exhibition interpreting strategies through the real field from mentoring from the experienced/senior docents beyond 'formal learning' exhibition content. Third, we need to equip docents with skills to make scientific literacy possible at science museum-such as experiencing scientific ethics through scientific inquiry-which happens limited at school education.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.672-682
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school science gifted students' perceptions about Earth systems and environmental problems. A total of 28 students in the attached center for science gifted education to the university participated in this study. Through the survey, participating students were asked to respond to their self-reported knowledge level, the perceived danger levels, certainty, and tangibility of the selected 13 Earth environmental problems. The DAET (Draw-An-Earth Test)-Checklist were developed and used to analyze the images of the Earth drawn by students. Additional interviews were conducted to clarify the meanings and components of students' image. Results indicated that a total of 80 components regarding Earth systems, 11 components of Earth systems interaction, and 4 components related to Earth systems literacy were identified through the DAET-Checklist and additional interviews. Regarding the students' self-reported knowledge level, they reported that they were most knowledgeable about air pollution, global warming, and water pollution. and they also recognized global warming, air pollution, and water pollution as the most dangerous problem. Results indicated that participants were certain that acid rain, air pollution, and water pollution were problematic, and that acid rain, air pollution, and forest desertification were tangible issues. It is anticipated that this study contributes to understanding the elementary school science gifted students' perceptions toward the selected Earth systems and environmental problems.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.91-104
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• 2017

The purposes of this study were to analyze high school students' understanding about the Earth system and systems thinking process, and to develop science writing programs designed to assess students' understanding about themes of Earth Science such as global warming, volcanoes, and desertification. A total of 8 $11^{th}$ grade students from general high schools participated in the writing program and draw the causal maps. The methods of this study are as follows. First, DAET-C was used to investigate the way of students' understanding about the Earth systems. What the students' best understood was the component of the Earth systems followed by the interaction of the Earth systems and the scientific literacy of Earth science. Second, feedback circulations on the causal maps were found in four students in global warming section, one student in volcanic eruption section, and four students in desertification section, which means that systems thinking was not largely employed by the students. Consequently, the student participants understood that the global change was happening in correlation with complex concepts and factors, but they were short of using systems thinking in their science study. Therefore, the result of this study suggests that more studies be conducted to develop systems thinking in Earth Science learning through science writing programs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.209-223
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• 2023

This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a polar literacy education program for elementary and middle school students, and to derive implications for new education to respond to climate change. We developed modular education programs based on the seven principles of polar literacy established by the Polar-ICE team. We divided them into two courses, one emphasizing science concepts and another emphasizing humanities and sociological issues. We then selected and structured detailed programs suitable for the two courses. These two courses were applied to 26 elementary and middle school students for approximately 69 hours in a Saturday science class hosted by the Department of Science Education at a university in Seoul. The 26 students were divided into three groups. Two groups completed the science education program for polar literacy and a humanities and social studies education program for polar literacy, respectively. The third group, the control group, received general science education unrelated to polar literacy. Before and after running the programs, all three groups responded to a polar literacy test and questionnaires that used vocabulary and presented scenes associated with polar regions. The test results were expressed using Wilcoxon signed ranks, which is a non-parametric test method, and improvements made upon completion of the program were analyzed. From a cognitive aspect, all three groups showed improvement after completing the program in the knowledge area; however, the experimental groups showed a greater degree of improvement than the control group, and there was a clear difference in the contents or materials explicitly covered. From an affective aspect, the difference between before and after the program was minor, but the group that focused on humanities and social issues showed a statistically significant improvement. Regarding changes in polar imagery, the two experimental groups tended to diverge from monotonous images to more diverse images compared to the control group. Based on the above results, we suggested methods to increase the effectiveness of polar literacy education programs, the importance of polar literacy as appropriate material for scientific thinking and earth system education, measures to improve attitudes related to the polar region, and the need to link to school curriculums.