The effect of teaching cell and segmentation unit for the 7th grade in science course with concept cartoons on their academic success

Science education is to teach students to understand their environment, learn scientific methods and benefit from them. For an effective learning, in science lessons, teaching methods that will associate old and new knowledge should be chasen. Concept maps that are one of these methods provide the information to be permanent in the mind connecting old and new information and making information meaningful. This research aimed to determine the effect of teaching the "Cell and Divisions" unit in secondary school 7 th grade science course on the academic achievement of students. The sample of the research consists of 30 7th grade students studying in a state secondary school in Cihanbeyli districh of Konya, in the research. pre-test and post-test design with the control group of the quasi experimental research model, wich is one of the quantitive research methods was used. In the sample selection, the easily accessible sampling method was used. The study is a quantitative study and supported by qualitative data. "Science Attitude Test" prepared by Keçeci and Kırbağ-Zengin (2015) and "Cell and Divisions Achievement Test" prepared by Coşkun (2019) were used as data collection tools. Science attitude scale was applied to study groups to determine students attitudes towars science. According to the analysis, no difference was found in the science attitudes of the control and experimental groups. In the next stage, the "Cell and Divisions Achievement Test" was applied to the study groups as a pre-test before starting the training. In the application lasting five weeks; the lesson was tought by the teacher in the control group according to science curriculum and in the experimental group with concept maps. In the post-application analysis results, there was no statistically significant difference between the pre-test results of the control and experimental groups, but statistically significant results were found between the post-test academic achievements scores. In the interviews with the students, it was revealed that concept maps contributed to their learning. As a result, it was concuded that concept maps increase academic achievement more than science curriculum. Keywords: Concept Map, Cells and Divisions, Attitude, Academic Success.