2014 Volume 36 Issue 4 Pages 47-57
The goal of this research is to examine how to design coursework for “Inquisitive Science Learning” in order to promote science literacy among children. In the study, we conducted a practice lesson using an episode from the science program “Full Option science System (FOSS)” about “air” and “wind”. We studied how children build scientific concepts and examined a curriculum design that links the studies of “air” and “wind” through “inquisitive science learning”. From these results, the following two points have been clarified: ・ In the FOSS’s science program, “air” contains a four-step learning cycle: “free exploration/inquiry”, “direct experience”, “collecting data to organizing results to deriving a conclusion”, and “supplemental experience to reinforce the obtained conclusion.” ・ The scientific concepts “the existence of air”, “air resistance”, and “air pressure” encourages awareness that furthers the formation of the scientific concept “wind is the movement of air.”