2020 Volume 60 Issue 3 Pages 695-700
“Earth and the Universe: Solar System and Stars” is studied in lower secondary school third-grade science classes. The purpose of this learning is to find out about the characteristics of the Sun, including its size and surface features. In these classes, students have never attempted any experiment that determines the Sun’s actual diameter. However, there is an experiment that can be done using the pinhole method. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the introduction of the student experiment and to improve students’ interest levels in the subject. Hypothetically, the diameter of the Sun is 1,391,400 km. 70 percent of students in 2016 and 80 percent of students in 2017 could determine the diameter of the Sun to within less than 30 percent error by utilizing the pinhole method. The pinhole experiment’s central equation states that: diameter of the Sun/distance from Sun to Earth=diameter of image of the Sun/distance from pinhole to image. I examined the relationship between the slope of the theoretical value and the slope of the students’ actual values for the diameter of the light and the distance from the pinhole to the light. The calculation of the t-test showed a statistically significant result in 2016 (df=44, p<0.01), whereas in 2017 the result of the calculation was not statistically significant (df=29, p=0.4332). Surveys about the Sun were administered before and after the class. In the first survey about 50% of the students answered that they were interested in the Sun, while results of the second survey showed that the percentage of students’ interest about the Sun increased to 70%. Moreover, the survey also revealed an increase in interest in learning about other planets. Another survey result illuminated a remaining issue with regard to operation of the experiment: finding the diameter of the light clearly.
