Identifying and enhancing secondary school students' understanding of water cycle: A developmental study

Water cycle is one of the key subjects to understand the role of water on earth and the importance for the living things. The desired conceptualization of this subject by students is important in raising future generations as water literate. This study was designed to elucidate the conceptualization of water cycle held by various grades of secondary school developmentally. To improve students' conceptualization ProjectWET activities were used and this is the first application nationally. This study is conducted as a cross-sectional research which is one of the development' research methods. The study group consists of 51 students from a public school in the Eastern Black Sea Region, 18 from the 5th grade, 16 from the 6th grade, and 17 from the 7th grade, who are taking the Science course in the fall semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. The data collection tools of the study were Word Association Test (WAT), Water Cycle Drawing Test (WCDT) and Water Cycle Knowledge Test (WCKT). Data collection tools were used as pre and post-tests. Content analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the study, it was determined that the improvements related to the water cycle emerged at the fifth grade level best and conceptualisation was developed after the activities. In this context, it has been suggested to start the teaching of the water cycle at the fifth grade level and to use educational games to provide scientifically knowledge to students.