Park, Joonhyeong

We designed an inquiry activity to investigate the question, 'Is water a lubricant?' Placing the same object on surfaces of three different materials, we observed the effect of adding a small amount of water on the coefficient of static friction, μ_s. Up to 1 ml of water was added. The results of each surface were graphed and compared with one another. In general, our findings show that the addition of water serves to increase μ_s up to a certain point, before decreasing it. The experiment can be easily replicated in a secondary school science lab. It presents two seemingly opposing phenomena, but they both hold because they occur within their respective boundary conditions.

The rapid progression of science and technology has brought both remarkable conveniences and innovations and potential risks to us. To address these risks within science education, this study aims to identify the tendency of students’ risk perceptions across different technologies. For this purpose, we developed a survey addressing three key components of risk perception (i.e., risk recognition, risk assessment, and risk management) and the educational need for risk education. 3¹¹ responses were collected from elementary, middle, and high school students and statically analyzed. The results indicated that students showed various risk perception patterns depending on the technology. There were significant perception gaps between boys and girls regarding vaccines and antimicrobial technology. It was also found that high school students’ perceptions of the benefits of the technologies were higher than elementary and middle school students’ perceptions. Based on these findings, we discuss pedagogical implications for risk education in science classrooms.

This study investigates how to guide students’ drawing diagram activities as constructing explanations in science classrooms from the metafunctions in systemic functional language (SFL). Although a drawing-to-learn approach requires sufficient support, there is still a lack of understanding regarding the pedagogical considerations for guiding students on what and how to draw during their activities. Guided by the metafunctions in SFL, I analysed a case of one teacher’s teaching practices of employing drawing-diagram activities in a general science classroom. I found that the teacher translated the objects to draw from the familiar to the targeted visual meaning for the students (ideational). To provide a clearer understanding of the roles of diagrams, she had reflective discussions with the students about how other people could interpret their diagrams and what would be important to represent iteratively through sharing the diagrams using a visualiser (interpersonal). She also often provided several examples of organising diagrams at the beginning of or during the activities to brainstorm ideas for the compositions (textual). This practical knowledge framed by the metafunctions is aimed at providing a better understanding of how teachers can deploy a drawing-to-learn approach and intervene during drawing activities to facilitate students’ science learning in general science classrooms.

Background
To support collaborative drawing, it is essential to investigate how students make collaborative drawings and how these contribute to elaborating their ideas. This study examines how 5th and 6th grade students’ group drawings contributed to increased levels of explanations of their drawings about sound transmission.

Methods
We analyzed two cases of group drawing processes, that showed a large difference in the explanatory levels in their drawings, to find discourse patterns and visualized these patterns through discourse maps in relation to the progressions of drawing.

Findings
In the first case, the students successfully co-constructed sound transmission drawings following Demand-Give-Acknowledge patterns. The students continuously questioned how to visualize particles’ vibration, used multimodal resources to generate alternative drawings, and determined most scientific drawings. In the second case, the students did not reach consensus on how to visualize particles’ vibrations, following repetitive patterns of Give-Refute. While the teacher intervened and mediated student’s conflicting ideas, the students did not generate any alternative ideas.

Contribution
This study illustrates in close detail how the process of multimodal transactive discussion contributed to conceptual understanding during collaborative drawings. The discourse map may be instrumental to analyze students’ collaboration systematically and devise pedagogical approaches.