The effect of activity based nature education at a summer science camp on 4th and 5th grader?s conceptions of the nature

Nature-based education is becoming popular in recent years with the support of ?The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TSTRCT)?. Informal education is sometimes more effective than the school learning (Ballantyne & Uzzell, 1994; Ramey ?Gassert & Prather, 1994). In this study, nature was introduced to children at a summer science camp through their observations at the nature and discussions about their observations under the lead of science educators.The camp program was developed by the researchers. It started with a nature walk through which children made observations at different observation stations pre-prepared by the project team. In the following days, more detailed nature observations was conducted at different nature sessions. Eco-systems in the nearby forest were introduced first, then lake eco-system was introduced at the Abant Lake, after that other eco-systems were introduced through documentary films at different sessions. Not only living organisms were observed in most of the nature sessions, but also non-living things such as soil, water, e.t.c. were observed in some of the sessions. Relation of nature with mathematics and art was also introduced at two sessions. Nature games were purposefully played with children throughout the camp program to teach them some ecological processes such as food chain, carrying capacity, population control e.t.c.The summer science camp was held between June, 25 and July, 2, 2008 in Bolu Turkey by a project team of science educators in Abant Izzet Baysal University and support of TSTRCT. Twenty-four elementary school children (4th and 5th grade) participated to the camp. Since the main aim of the camp was to introduce nature to the children, its effectiveness was searched by applying a questionnaire which was consisted of 10 open ended question about nature at the beginning and the end of the camp. The questionnaire was developed by the researchers. Semi-structured individual interviews around questionnaire responses were also conducted by the project team to deepen the data. Qualitative data were transcribed and analyzed by content analysis technique (Simsek & Yildirim, 2006) and interpreted. According to this technique answers were coded first and then they were classified. This process continued inductively and deductively.Research results showed that children?s conception of nature consisted of mainly by plants and then animals. They realized the role of plants at the nature better than the role of animals. They recognized plants more fundamental at the nature than animals. Their nature concept was rarely included non-living organisms. They did not know the term `food-chain? as it is, but they explained it by `animals eat animals?. They did not know the eco-systems at the beginning of the camp. They realized negative effect of human on the nature more than positive effect of human. In addition to biological concepts, the children attributed non-biological concepts such as esthetic, peace to the nature.At the end of the summer science camp, the children?s nature concepts were extended. They better realized the role of plants and animals at the nature. They explained food-chain with more scientific terminology and were able to form longer food-chains. They also related food-chain to human better at the end of the camp. Furthermore some of them realized food chain formed a balance at the nature by controlling population of plants and animals. They also learned eco-system and they conceptualized eco-system similarly to the nature concept. But they did not attribute non-biological concepts to eco-system and related eco-system to non-living things more than they did with nature.The most positive effect of the camp program was observed by the development of ecological process in children?s conceptions of the nature. Such ecological processes as food-chain, eco-system, balance at the nature, population control emerged from the post-test data. They learned more about nature at the camp and interrelated plants and animals better by learning ecological processes. Although they developed slightly, they did not realize the role of non-living things on these ecological processes to the degree expected by the researchers.Key Words: Activity Based Nature Education, Perception of the Nature Informal Learning, Summer Science Camp.