Developing a material based on the context based approach on the topic "the earth and the universe" for the 5th grade primary students

The aim of this study is to develop and apply a material based on the context based approach related to the topic " The Earth and The Universe" which is in the content and one of the main issues of science and technology of the 5th grade primary students and also to help the 5th grade students to learn the alternative concepts and complete their lack of knowledge.This research is qualitative relating to semi-structured observations and interviews with the students and quantitative relating to planning the concept test and containing pre-test, post-test, observing-test and attitude scale. The qualitative and quantitative data were gained separately, analyzed and gathered in the result part.This research was applied to the 5th Grade students of two different classes who were chosen in Menderes Primary School, in Çanakkale Bayramiç in 2008?2009 as control and experimental groups. The data of the research were gathered with concept-test, attitude scale, interview and talks. To determine the understanding level of the students and whether they perform a meaningful learning or not, context based materials containing various activities were used.Findings point out that the context based approach is more effective (p= 0.001< 0.05) than traditional approach for students to learn the concepts related to explained topics and this approach has a very important effect about the permanence of the learned knowledge (t=0.594; p= 0.555>0.05). Furthermore, the findings gained from the Science Attitude Scale show that there is not a difference between the effects of the context based and traditional approaches on the attitudes of the students (t=0.622; p=0.54>0.05). However, according to the semi-structured interviews in the experimental group, it is clear that in the lessons with the context based approach, the attitudes of the students towards science were affected positively. Based on the gained results, advice has been made to the educationalists concerning to further scientific research on this topic.Keywords: Science and Technology Education, The Earth and The Universe, The Context Based Approach, Misconception.