2021 Volume 62 Issue 1 Pages 37-48
The National Curriculum Standards for Elementary Schools announced in 2017 included “sound” in the 3rd Grade Science curriculum for the first time in twenty years. For teachers to successfully foster students’ construction of a scientific concept of sound through educational guidance, there is a need to understand the children’s prior naive conceptions and experiences from everyday life before embarking on the lesson. In view of the above, this study endeavored to conduct a perception survey of children on “sound” before taking the class and utilized the Science Teaching/Learning Process Map to design a lesson on “sound” in an effort to design a lesson that helps children build a scientifically correct concept of “sound”. The lesson’s effectiveness was verified through classroom implementation. Through the study, the following findings were observed: (1) the children had not identified the connection between “sound” and “trembling (vibration)” until they took the class, while many of them, based on their daily experiences, believed “sound” to be generated from the collision or friction of objects; (2) with the aim of reminding the children to evoke the image of vibration in the presence of collision or friction (the source of sound in children’s prior naive conceptions), the lesson design was confirmed to effectively foster the children’s understanding and expression of the relationship between “sound” and “vibration” (the proposition), allowing them to acquire the correct scientific concept.
