This study analyzed variations of learning stress by comparing the salivary cortisol levels of students who participated in Earth Science inquiry activities. The cortisol concentrations between the pre- and post-inquiries of the sample of 34 university students, who had taken the course of ‘Basic Earth Science and Experiments’, were analyzed. The Earth Science inquiries consisted of geology and astronomy activities. The observational geology activities consisted of a session of ‘structure contours and map patterns’ and the cognitive astronomy activities consisted of a session of ‘representations of horizontal and equatorial coordinates’. These Earth Science inquiry activities were found to cause students to have anxiety, and the thought processes that these activities involved were found to cause learning stress. The variations in cortisol concentrations of students increased by 1.6±5.9 ng mL−1 after conducting observational activities in geology compared with 2.1±6.2 ng mL−1 after doing cognitive activities in astronomy. The analysis of the observational activities in the geology inquiry activities indicated that they were consistent with low levels of learning stress. Conversely, the analysis of the cognitive activities in the astronomy inquiry activities showed significant individual variations in cortisol concentrations. Furthermore, individual differences in cognitive ability were reflected in the astronomy inquiry activities. While students, who received high scores, exhibited low levels of stress in the geology inquiry activities, they showed high levels of stress in the astronomy inquiry activities. It was concluded that, in the case of students with high scores in the study, the level of learning stress increased due to the raised anxiety in cognitive inquiry activities. In contrast, students, who received low scores in the study, exhibited high levels of stress in the geology inquiry activities, and low levels of stress in the astronomy inquiry activities.

Urban planning and engineering undergraduate students need to understand the earth physical systems and that how human beings interact with the earth systems to planning and engineering urban area. The eco-friendly or geofriendly design and planning of an urban area is a critical issue not only for economic benefits but more importantly for the sustainable future of urban life. However, little study has been done dealing with the urban engineering students’ understanding of the earth as a system and what pedagogical approach is appropriate to improve their understanding of the earth as a system. This study is to investigate the impact of a purposely designed ESS course on urban engineering students’ understanding of the earth as a system and their perceptions about the instructional approaches of the course on their learning competency. This study utilized a mixed-methodology with three main data sources: concept maps, student’s perception survey about their learning competency, and course contents. Both the survey and concept maps were analyzed quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The result of this study showed that the urban engineering students’ experience of team-based research about the topic they chose based on their own interest had a positive impact on their understanding of the earth as a system and their learning competency. The results of this study suggest that structuring and presenting the earth system contents in the context of engineering students’ understanding and their future career be effective not only for the improvement of students’ content knowledge but also for the enhancement of their learning competency such as creativity and problem-solving skills in everyday life situation

본 연구의 목적은 중학교 1학년 과학 기본과정 지구과학영역의 자율학습용 콘텐츠에 대하여 분석 및 평가를 하는 것이다. 이를 위해 한국교육학술정보원(2008)의 '초 중등교육 e-러닝 품질관리 가이드라인(Ver.2.0)'에서 제시한 '사이버가정학습 콘텐츠 품질관리도구'를 적용하였다. 콘텐츠 분석에 대한 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 학습안내는 학생들이 한 차시에 학습하게 될 내용들을 간략히 소개하고 있는 것으로 나타났다. 그리고 선수학습에서는 진단평가가 이루어지지 않은 것으로 분석되었다. 둘째, 본 학습에서는 학습자의 수준에 맞게 콘텐츠를 선택하여 학습할 수 있었고, 본 학습 시간은 15분 내외로 구성되어 있는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 학습평가에서는 학습자가 오답에 대한 피드백은 이루어지지 않고, 틀린 문항 수만 제시되어 있었다. 그리고 학습정리는 그 차시에 배운 중요한 내용에 대해서는 다시 요약 정리하여 제시하고 있다. 콘텐츠 평가에 대한 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 요구분석, 교수학습전략, 상호작용에 대해서는 각 차시마다 큰 차이를 보이지 않았다. 그리고 윤리성에 대한 평가는 적합하지 못한 단어나 문장을 포함하고 있지 않은 것으로 나타났다. 저작권의 평가는 콘텐츠 내의 저작물에 대한 국제저작권표시방법을 준수하여 표시한 것으로 분석되었다. 둘째, 교수설계의 평가는 단순 그림 위주의 설명을 제시하였고, 플래시 등의 시각자료가 미흡한 것으로 나타났다. 그리고 지원체계의 평가에서는 학습자가 콘텐츠를 자유롭게 이용할 수 있도록 설치되어 있는 것으로 나타났다. 그러나 콘텐츠 학습 중 학습자가 메모할 수 있는 메모기능은 없는 것으로 분석되었다. 또한 평가에 대한 평가는 서술 내용에 대한 명확한 평가기준을 제시하고 있지는 않았다. 따라서 각각의 차시마다 조금씩 차이를 보였다. 셋째, 학습내용의 평가분석은 수정 보완하지 않은 탓에 최신의 정보를 포함하고 있지 않아 각 차시마다 큰 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났다.

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is one of methods which has been developed to promote student-centered learning and to pursue self-directed learning for life-long learning. The purpose of this study is exploring the possibility of Problem Based Learning (PBL) in college Earth science course. The participants of this study were fourteen students attending an Earth science class at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul. PBL was implemented in the form of group project with utilizing Web-based course tool. We provided questionnaires and conducted interviews to figure out students' perception about PBL. The findings were as follows: Through a given experiences, (1) students participated more actively than LBL (Lecture Based Learning), (2) more students were engaged with self-directed learning, and (3) students made higher cognitive efforts. LBL seemed to be more efficient way to acquire factual knowledge. In the meanwhile, PBL did not seem to affect the improvement of communication skills. Students could not make use of Web-based course tool effectively in communicating with other team members. In this study, we found that college student participants preferred problems related to everyday life, environmental issues and interesting but unusual incidents. On the other hand, they felt difficult in open-ended problems, especially when they were asked to provide their own evaluation. On the basis of PBL experiment in this paper, we present one method of successful implementation of PBL and suggest topics which should be studied in the future.

We investigate the forms, the inquiry levels and the objective types in the inquiry activities of the Earth Science text book (Science I HA) that was reorganized at March, 1988 from the eight publishers, according to the reference of Schwab's(1966) inquiry level of experiment and the Klopfer's (1971) classification of objectives of science education. Ninty seven percents of the experiments belong to the 1st level of the Schwab' s(1966) inquiry level and there are no activities of the 3rd level. On the basis of Klopfer's classification, ninty eight percents of the inquiry objectives are included in the only four kinds (A.O, B.O, D.O, G.O) of the nine objectives, and the rest (C.O, E.O, F.O, H.O, I. O) of the important objectives that are indispensable to the inquiry process seems to be exclusive. Conclusively speaking, the inquiry ability of the students may not be cultivated by the experiments in present text-book.