Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether a program utilizing “whole fish” as an educational tool, especially involved cooking practice of “whole fish” is effective to enhance the learning motivation of school children. Forty-four pupils of fifth grade in an elementary school participated as investigation objects in this research.
We gave them cooking practices and lectures about fish. Before and after the lessons, we carried out the same anonymous self-administrated questionnaire.
The main results are as follows:
1) Children’s view on fish changed after the class lecture and cooking practices. Just after lecture, words on large variety and wonder of fish were seen in their responses, while after one month the most frequent responses was “delicious”.
2) In the free description after a training of “whole fish” cooking there appeared interest on body structure, fish touching and even gratitude for fish.
3) As for how vital life pupils spend in their school, they were not aware of fish especially in the preliminary survey, but vitality factor was raised after one month as seen in the phrases of interesting in fish cooking and pleasure of meal in their responses.
To conclude, it became clear that this program involved cooking practice of “whole fish” is effective to enhance the learning motivation of children in their school life.
