Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics and proprieties of the granite observing results in the 4th grades elementary students' scientific inquiry activities. For this, the 4th, 94 students participated in granite observing activity which had objects to collecting applicable scientific facts for the distinguishing granite among the volcanic rocks. Following are the study results. First, the 829s of total results (879s) were admitted as the facts, but the rest, 50s were not the facts but the inference results. Second, the 542s results which were related to the shape, weigh, size, smell, sound, and touch (feeling) containing glittering of the rock specimen were the useless for the inquiry objects. And only the 85s results were the scientific facts which were deserved the admitting propriety for the inquiry objects. Third, the 185s results which were targeting to the particles (minerals) on the rock specimen were the admitting facts, but the 163s facts which were related to color, size and shape of the particles were deserved as admitting propriety for the inquiry objects. Consequently, the focusing on the proprieties of the granite observing results in the elementary students' scientific inquiry activities, only the 248 results (28.2%) of the total 879s were the admitting proprieties as the meaningful scientific facts in the scientific inquiry activities.

Keywords

• granite observing activity;
• scientific inquiry;
• volcanic rock