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

Within the context of new findings about nature of science,literature has been reviewed and it was seen that the activities todevelop nature of science understanding were not adequate. Forthis reason, new activities were developed as a part of 5th grade‘Matter and Change’ unit and their effectiveness was tested. Theresearch was conducted with 5th grade students from twoclassrooms, who were attending to a middle school in a village ofcity of Tokat. Activities developed about the unit; ‘Thermoscope toThermometer’, ‘Bingo Game’ and ‘Science Wheel’ activity fromthe literature were applied to experimental group with textbookcontent, as for control group the nature of science concepts wereintegrated with textbook content. VNOS-E questionnaire wasconducted both for pretest and posttest to experimental and controlgroup, the questionnaires were coded by three researchers and thecoefficient of consistency was calculated as 0,78. Results indicatedthat, experimental group’s view of nature of science in alldimensions was changed in a positive way, a significant differencewas found between the posttests of two groups in experimentalgroup’s favor. The activities were effective in developing students’views about the nature of science. The regular curriculum was noteffective in nurturing nature of science views as a consequencebecause the theoretical basis regarding the nature of science in therenewed science curriculum is not supported with appropriateactivities, methods and classroom resources. As a result, essentialand applicable suggestions were made for those who concerned.