The effectiveness of guided-inguiry and explicit nature of science activities applied at a summer science camp on sixth and seventh grade children?s views of the nature of science

Science indicates body of knowledge, method and way of knowing. Thus nature of science typically refers to the epistemology of science, science as a way of knowing, or the values and beliefs inherent to scientific knowledge and its development (Lederman, 2007).The aim of this study was to investigate how a summer science camp program which aimed at introducing science and Nature of science (NOS) aspects to children effected children?s conceptions of NOS. To achieve this goal, a summer science camp program was developed by the researchers. The main method of the camp program was a combination of guided-inquiry to learn scientific process and explicit NOS activities to introduce NOS. 24 elementary grade children voluntarily participated to the summer science camp held in Bolu, Turkey. In this study six aspects of NOS were searched. These aspects were children?s views of science and empirical basis of scientific knowledge, tentativeness of scientific knowledge, the difference between observation and inference, subjectivity in science, the role of imagination and creativity in science, and scientific model.A qualitative methodology was applied in this study. The data were collected through Views of the Nature of Science D (VNOS-D) questionnaire which was developed by Lederman ve Khishfe (2002). It was applied before and after the camp to determine the change in children?s views of NOS and evaluate the effectiveness of the science camp program. Semi-structured interviews were conducted just after the children filled out the questionnaires to deepen the data. Due to the excessive amount of qualitative data, a qualitative research software was used in the analysis of the data. Interpretative analysis (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993) was applied in the analysis. The data were inductively categorized and interpreted until all coded data were organized.Results of this study showed that the summer science camp program which was a combination of guided-inquiry at the nature and explicit NOS activities was effective in introducing science in general and six NOS aspects to the children. The most positive change was seen in the children?s views about empirical basis of the scientific knowledge. Children who defined science superficially as investigation, examination, and observation at the beginning of the science camp, defined science as detailed statements related to how research and observation was done at the end of the science camp. They also realized that scientists interpret data to draw conclusion and construct scientific knowledge. The least effect of the science camp program was seen on the aspect of difference between observation and inference. At the beginning of the science camp, it was seen that children have a misconception of ?seeing is knowing?. At the end of the science camp, even though they did not indicate that scientists make ?inferences?, they indicated that scientists use intellectual and cognitive processes after they collect data and they compare their data with available data, so they can reach the conclusion.The camp program was also found to be effective in introducing the tentativeness of the scientific knowledge. At the beginning of the camp, most of the children accepted that the scientific knowledge would change in the future depending on technological developments and discoveries. At the end of the science camp they still accepted the tentativeness of the scientific knowledge, but they explained the reason for change as the change in data and the amount of the data. They related the tentativeness of the scientific knowledge to the empirical nature of the scientific knowledge.Although the children accepted that imagination and creativity of scientists effect their research, they did not explain how it affects their research. At the end of the science camp, they were able to explain imagination and creativity was used at every part of a research. But, they developed an idea that scientists complete the missing parts of data by their imagination which is not always true, but sometimes occurs.The children did not know scientific models at all at the end of the science camp, but they explained that scientific models were developed based on data and would change if the data changes.At the beginning of the science camp, they had difficulty in understanding that the scientists propose different ideas by looking at the same research results. They were found to be believed in objective knowledge. But, at the end of the science camp, they realized that the scientists provide different ideas although they had the same research results or the same data. They were also able explain the reason for that as having different educational background, and social environment. They also stated that scientist?s imagination and creativity was different and this causes their ideas to be different.Based on these results, it was concluded that the science camp program was effective to introduce six aspects of NOS. It helped children to realize how these aspects affect the work of scientist and the scientific knowledge that they developed.Keywords: Nature of Science, Summer Science Camp, Elementary Students