The effect of a trip organized in planetarium on science course on academic success, interest and motivation of 7th year students

The aim of this research is to determine the students' views on the effect of using a planned trip to planetarium which is one of the out-of-school learning environments in the science lesson of 7th-grade students on academic success, interest and motivation and the use of planetariums in science lesson. In order to realize this aim, a course plan which is integrated with the planetarium trip and prepared in accordance with 5E model was applied. Out-of-school education is expressed not as an alternative to classroom education but as a complement to it. Therefore, it covers all learning processes including educational activities to support education in the school. In this study, quantitative and qualitative data were collected because a single data set would not be sufficient to search for answers to the research problem and therefore mixed method was used. It was decided to use a pre-test and post-test control group quasi-experimental research model to collect quantitative data. The study group of the study consists of 32 7th-grade students in 7/A and 7/B branches of a village school in Amasya province in 2019-2020 academic years. In the sampling selection, one of the non-random sampling methods, the appropriate sampling method, that is, the easily accessible status sampling method was used. In collecting quantitative data as a data collection tool, the ''Academic Achievement Test'' consisting of 20 questions about the acquisition of the Solar System and Beyond, which is the second part of the Solar System and Beyond unit, which was prepared by the researcher with the help of expert opinion, and the ''Interest Scale for Science Subjects'' and ''The Motivation Scale for Science Learning'' was used and these tests were applied to experimental and control groups as pre-test and post-test. Data analysis was performed with SPSS 22 program, Shapiro-Wilk analysis was used for normality test and Independent Groups t-test was used for statistical calculations. As a result of statistical calculations, it was found that there was a significant difference in favor of the experimental group between the experimental group and the control group academic achievement test, the scale of interest in science subjects and the motivation scale for science learning. The qualitative data of the research were collected by using the expert opinion and the pre-trip and post-trip interview questions were used by the researcher to determine the views of the students. The data obtained were evaluated by content analysis. In this study, first of all, out of school education is introduced with different aspects, then science teaching and finally the introduction of the planetarium which is the subject of this research is mentioned and the application stages of the integrated course plan are given. In the light of the data obtained, it was seen that if the out-of-school education activities were carried out in a planned way, it reached its purpose, the student achievement in science teaching carried out with the trip to the planetarium increased compared to the current education and the students who had no idea about the planetarium initially found this environment fun and instructive. In addition, it was found that teaching with the planetarium significantly increased students' interest in science subjects and motivation level for learning science. The idea that is intended to be emphasized by this research is that Planetarium, which is one of the out-of-school learning environments that is seen as a complement to education in the classroom, should be used as an effective education tool by making planned activities at all levels of education and should be integrated with the education system. Keywords: Out of School Education (Outdoor School-ODS), Science Education Curriculum, Planetarium.