小学生理科自由研究作品の単元・分野分類―自然科学観察コンクール入賞作品を対象として―

抄録

In the science section of the Japanese course of study, there are four “fields”, i.e. “matter (particle)”, “energy”, “life” and “the earth”, and these fields consist of by many “units” containing scientific knowledge or concepts which should be understood by pupils. To classify scientific papers written by pupils, we identified the scientific knowledge or concepts used by pupils in their scientific papers. When the scientific knowledge or concept in the scientific paper were found in the unit of the Japanese course of study, we determined the papers to be related to that unit. Using 102 papers from the Japanese science contest (Shizekon) from 2006 to 2011, we found that some pupils used scientific knowledge or concepts which were scheduled to be learned later in elementary or junior high schools. Many papers (72%) were classified as the “life” field. On the other hand, only 35% of the units in “the earth” field were found in the papers examined. Most of the papers (82%) were related to two or more units or fields. Because teachers are expected to show pupils the relationships between units to improve their understanding of science, these scientific papers may be useful for teachers to develop their teaching materials.