Development of Sundial Application that can be Utilized in Astronomy Learning: With a Science Class at Lower Secondary School

Abstract

For this research, we developed a sundial application which can easily display the movement of the sun with the shadow of the sundial and used it in a lower secondary school class to help students learn the cause of season changes. Based on the degree of comprehension of the students’ teaching materials, the usefulness of the teaching materials, and the students’ growing interest in astronomy learning, the following three points were clarified from the results: 1) Students could understand why the seasons change through classes and explain the phenomenon by connecting their known information and the results of this research, 2) Students thought that the sundial application is a useful teaching material and wanted to use it for the purpose of verifying the forecast, and 3) The participation rate in the extracurricular observation was the highest in the class using the sundial app in the lesson, and almost all the students were able to observe continuously until the end. From the above results, it was suggested that the sundial application developed in this research is an instructive teaching material in astronomy learning.