Abstract
We have developed the hands-on science educational program, mainly of scientific experiments for elementary school children of forth to fifth grade and their parents. The name is “Oyako de Science: Learning about Science with Parents (in short: OYAKO)”. With OYAKO, a child will learn about the subject “light” for three weeks. The program is composed of: 1) science experiment workshop which child and parent take part in, 2) experiments at home by child alone, 3) experiments at home by child and parent together. In OYAKO, cell phones are used as learning tools. When Children do experiments, they can grasp the procedure of science experiment and after that they can take a short quiz on the cell phones. Also the cell phone is considered as tool to pull out “the engagement of parents in their child’s learning.” Cell phone provides some information about what, when children learn, how well they understand and what kind of advise parents should give to their parents by e-mail. We found that with the participation of parents and thus their engagement in their child’s education, the understanding of the child on concepts improved and that changes occurred in their naive concepts of light.
