Development of Elementary School Science Lessons for Cultivating Critical Thinking

—Class Practice Incorporating Capacitor Connection Experiments—

Abstract

The objective of this study was to formulate a lesson plan to be taught to elementary school children to develop their critical thinking skills by making use of teaching materials in elementary school science, and to verify its positive effects. To achieve this purpose, we devised a task for the students involving the connection of capacitors to stimulate their critical thinking. We developed a lesson to encourage the growth of children’s critical thinking skills and measured this growth with a worksheet. To confirm the effectiveness of the developed lesson, it was administered in conjunction with the “Usage of Electricity” themed unit in a sixth-grade elementary school science class. From the results of our analysis of the data collected from the questionnaire and worksheet, we found that the lesson we developed was indeed effective in fostering an attitude of seeking more productive solutions and of thinking more reflectively among elementary school science students.