Abstract
Student's direct experience through experimentation with teaching materials is important for acquiring scientific concepts. Here we report a case study conducted at a public elementary school in Nagano Prefecture, in which our proposed unit program of six class hours was carried out to help students to understand the volume change of air depending on temperature through the experience of making an air thermometer. In this unit program, students can select materials for making the air thermometer and choose experimental methods for measuring the temperature of substances with their own thermometers. These choices helped most students to enhance their learning motivation. Trials and errors lead students to notice the fundamental principle of air thermometer. By modifying their thermometers to more efficient ones, students widened the concept of volume change of substances to that of invisible air. Furthermore, most students understood the relationship between volume change of air and temperature. It is thus suggested that our unit program focussing on direct experience to make the air thermometer is useful for students to understand volume change of air depending on temperature.
