Effectiveness of the Nature of Science Activities Developed for 5 th Grades

Within the context of new findings about nature of science, literature has been reviewed and it was seen that the activities to develop nature of science understanding were not adequate. For this reason, new activities were developed as a part of 5th grade ‘Matter and Change’ unit and their effectiveness was tested. The research was conducted with 5th grade students from two classrooms, who were attending to a middle school in a village of city of Tokat. Activities developed about the unit; ‘Thermoscope to Thermometer’, ‘Bingo Game’ and ‘Science Wheel’ activity from the literature were applied to experimental group with textbook content, as for control group the nature of science concepts were integrated with textbook content. VNOS-E questionnaire was conducted both for pretest and posttest to experimental and control group, the questionnaires were coded by three researchers and the coefficient of consistency was calculated as 0,78. Results indicated that, experimental group’s view of nature of science in all dimensions was changed in a positive way, a significant difference was found between the posttests of two groups in experimental group’s favor. The activities were effective in developing students’ views about the nature of science. The regular curriculum was not effective in nurturing nature of science views as a consequence because the theoretical basis regarding the nature of science in the renewed science curriculum is not supported with appropriate activities, methods and classroom resources. As a result, essential and applicable suggestions were made for those who concerned.