Earticle

This study was carried out to analyze primary gifted education systems in Korea and China. The results of the research are as follows : (1) The objectives of the gifted children education of two countries are same. They intend to dig out hidden talent and giftedness of gifted children. They emphasize the development of creativity in the gifted children through the various special teaching methods. (2) Korea has been doing the gifted education limitedly focused on the 4th grade students in elementary school after regular school curriculum, but China has performed gifted education from primary school to university quite systematically. (3) Korea tend to select the students based on the objective sources such as teachers' observation, recommendation, school scores, but this has limit to find out the real potential genius. China has the similar problems, but they consider of the comprehensive talented and abilities in students at school unit level. (4) Both countries have the teacher training systems for study to make more efficient programs and methods in gited education. It has been emphasized the necessity of gifted education to expand the range and target. Most of all it is very essential to train the teachers to manipulate the gifted education programs. The government should be persue the multiplicity and professionality now. So there are so many things to learn from China since they managed the gifted education in a regular curriculum of the school.

This study aimed to analyze the teachers' cognitions about the primary science textbooks(experiment and observation) used in elementary schools. This study surveyed 211 teachers in Seoul and Gyeonggi province. The data were statistically analyzed by SPSS WIN 10.0. The results of this study are as follows : Most of the teachers showed positive opinions on the directions of the compilation of experiment and observation textbook. Teachers used experiment and observation textbook as summary notes, experiment reports and evaluating methods. The experiment and observation textbooks should be compiled and reorganized in order as follows : Lesson introduction, inquiry activities, and intensive and supplementary activities which are followed by space of description in experiment and observation textbook.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of PBL-based astronomical observation on the science process skills and scientific attitudes in elementary science-gifted students. To verify research problems, the subjects of this study were forth-grade students selected from one classes of an elementary science-gifted class in Busan National Universty of education : the research group is composed of twenty students who were participated in PBL-based astronomical observation program. During four weeks, the PBL-based astronomical observation program instruction was executed in the reasearch group. Post-test showed following results: First, the research group showed a significant improvement in the science process skill. We look into detailly this, the research group showed a significant improvement in the basis science skill. The sub-factor 'expectation' of the science process skill effects a significant improvement. Second, the research group showed a significant improvement in the scientific attitudes. In conclusion, PBL-based astronomical observation program was more effective on science process skill and scientific attitudes . However, since the study has a limit on an object of the study and the applied program, the additional studies need to be conducted with an extended comparative group and program.

The purpose of this study is to provide meaningful basic materials for organizing a science curriculum in future by analyzing the status and changes of contents about astronomical phenomena in textbooks according to the changes of the science curriculum of elementary school. A main target of analysis is science textbooks of elementary school in curriculums from 1st to 7th. For the analysis, the analytic frame based on contents in astronomy textbooks of teachers colleges and colleges of education was used. The result of the analysis is as in the following. First, astronomy accounted for average about 7% of all pages of textbooks in all of science curriculums. The 1st educational curriculum had the most learning quantity of 10.40%, and the 6th curriculum had the least quantity of 4.39%. These results show that astronomy was not a small part and was considered important in each science curriculum of elementary school considering that earth science accounted for 17-26% of all pages in elementary school science curriculum. Second, the things that have been dealt with in common in all science curriculums from 1st to 7th of elementary school are the shape of the earth, the rotation and the revolution of the earth, the occurrence of the seasons, the apparent motion of the sun, the status and motion of the moon, the movement of a star, the brightness and distance of a star, constellations, the sun, planets and others. These contents are expected to be dealt with continuously as basic contents to organize astronomy regardless of the changes of curriculum. Third, in science curriculum of elementary school, astronomical phenomena based on life experiences regarding the earth, the moon and the sun are mainly dealt with in the first and the second grade. Contents requiring principles-understanding and research are dealt with in the fifth and sixth grade. These results show that elementary school science curriculum dealing with astronomy reflects the developmental stages of students and considers principle of learning possibility.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of small group inquiry skills on improving science process skills and attitudes toward science in elementary school science. The research questions of this study were as follows. First, effects of small group inquiry skills on improving science process skills in elementary school science. Second, effects of small group inquiry skills on improving attitudes toward science in elementary school science. The subjects of this study is two classes from 6th grade elementary classes in Busan. The experiment class practiced small group inquiry skills, while the control class practiced self inquiry. To verify the effect of the experiment, ANOVA was conducted. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, the small group inquiry skills gave a significant influence on increasing the science process skills, including the basic science process skills and the integrated science process skills, of students. Especially, among subordinate factors of science process skills between groups, it was effective to increase abilities of observing, reasoning, interpreting data, formulating hypothesis. It is necessary for teachers to make an effort to teach according to steps of the small group inquiry skills and to support inquiry activities, in order to increasing the science process skills. However, frequency of additional lessons have a little influence on increasing the science process skills. Second, there is meaningful change in the attitudes toward science for those who studied the small group inquiry skills. Also, they affected subordinate factors of the attitudes toward science, like the attitudes toward science inquiry, the happiness about science class. This study shows that the small group inquiry skills give a positive influence on the science process skills and attitudes toward science in elementary school science.

The purposes of this study investigated the effects of placement of analogy on the conceptual changes of air of elementary students, while learning the air conceptions. The subjects consisted of 108 students who are in the sixth grade classes in an elementary school in Busan city. For this study, comparative group(37 members), experimental groupⅠ(37 members), and experimental groupⅡ(34 memgers) were selected. A pre-test and a post-test on the air conception were done both for the comparative group and the experimental groups. The results are as follows. First, the averages of experiment group I and II are statistically higher than comparative group's. By the way, it just has a small gap between the comparative group and the experimental Ⅱ. In other words, activity of analogy does not keep always constant to change of air conceptions of elementary students. Therefore, it has a different reason that only before or after during the analogy. Second, it shows that experimental group Ｉ has effected on a more change of air conceptions as compared with experimental group Ⅱ. Then, the first group’s result shows better than the other group’s result. From this result, six grade students showed a change of air conceptions very well by analogy. It means if the analogy is given to students at the beginning state of chapter, they can understand scientific concepts easily.

This study aims to compare and analyze the types of teaching-learning activities, themes and percentage of STS contents in the area of “The Earth and the Universe” in elementary science subject following the 7th Curriculum and 2007 Revised Curriculum, identifying how STS education has changed and their features. First, the number of pages where STS appears in the 2007 revised science textbook has increased over 10% compared to the that of the 7th curriculum. In particular, the number of pages in the 5th and 6th graders increased substantially to 15% and 34%, respectively. Second, as a result of analysis on components of STS, ‘applications of science’, ‘local and community relevance’, ‘social problem and issues’, ‘evaluation concerned fir getting and using information’ were obtained in the order named for the 7th curriculum; while 'applications of science’, ‘local and community relevance’, ‘career awareness’ and ‘social problem and issues’ were obtained in the order named for 2007 revised curriculum. Third, with regard to the analysis on theme areas, the 7th curriculum was found to cover the theme on use of natural resources most frequently, followed by environmental problem, while 2007 revised curriculum to cover environmental problem and effects of technical development most frequently, followed by space development and use of natural resources. Fourth, in the area of STS teaching activities, ‘investigation activity’ showed highest percentage in 7th curriculum, followed by ‘analysis of data', and ‘research design’, while ‘analysis of data’ showed highest frequency of appearance, followed by “investigation activity’ and ‘actual activities’ and ‘research design’ in the order named in 2007 revised curriculum, showing that the area of ‘analysis of data’ and ‘actual activities’ increased substantially compared to the 7th curriculum.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the science gifted children’s creativity and scientific attitude development by e-PBL based scientific writing program. This program is composed of 4 instructions (13 hours), and its learning contents are made up to guide reading the related science books and understanding the contents through mind map to find out a solution by themselves, also, making an independent problem into group issue and setting up the plan for solution through small group cooperative learning, finally, performing activities like writing, presentation, evaluation and discussion according to the plan for solution. To examine the effect of creativity and scientific attitude by the program, 40 students of elementary science gifted children group in the Busan national university of education were selected for an experimental group. The review result is that, Firstly, the program affected positively creativity improvement of elementary science gifted children, Secondly, the program affects positively scientific attitude improvement of them as well. In conclusion, the program affects positively their creativity and scientific attitude.