Effects of Sultans of Science Exibition to preservice science teachers' percaption of history of science

As one of the professional requirements of science education is to teach the history of science in science courses, obtaining certain equipment related to the history of Islamic science can be considered as a necessity during pre-vocational education. The research investigates the long-term effect of the Sultans of Science Exhibition-an interactive exhibition on the history of Islamic science, on the perception of science history of science teacher candidates at the beginning of vocational education. This study used the phenomenological research design method and the study group consisted of fourteen participants from the first-year students of science-teaching department. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted to have a grasp on pre-service teachers' perceptions of the history of science in the spring term of the year 2016-17 before taking participants with a group-visit to exhibition. Then second interviews were conducted seven months later than the visit to invest long-term impacts of the exhibition and to examine the changes in the knowledge, feelings, and thoughts of the participants about the history of science. The data were analyzed according to content analysis techniques. The results show that the participants' perception of science history was mostly shaped by western thought before the exhibition visit. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the visit of the `Sultans of Science` exhibition allowed the participants to obtain permanent information on the history of Islamic science and that their perceptions towards the Turkish-Islamic world changed in a positive way.