1. Introduction
Natural sciences and art are considered as irrelevant branches of science. Basic contents of natural science have
been given only theoretically during education. This resulted the misunderstanding that knowledge is a memorized
concept and thus, decreasing its persistence. According to Moran (1983), everything forming a human depends on
his/her life experience and those experiences depend on observations perceived from the outside world. The best
ways of forwarding opinions are drawing, painting, dramatization; creative atelier works (Breckenridge et. al., 1969;
Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1992). Since creativity is unique for becoming an individual person, it must be supported
and awarded. Creativity is necessary for learning process, too. Permanent learning is being achieved more easily by
multiple intelligence concepts (Selçuk et. al, 2004; EllialtÕo÷lu, 2006). Learning the basic principles of natural
sciences should be supported with this concept. This will produce “science literate” individuals. Within this respect,
the aim of the Mobile Science and Art project that works up with six- and seven-aged children in preschools of
Isparta was to transpose knowledge to the public in an understandable manner, to visualise it as much as possible, to
support it with interactive applications, to become aware of the children to the scientific facts, and to trigger their
curiosity feeling, research and get to know request. In the scope of the project, it is predicted to realize overall 10
activities consisting of experiments, observations and atelier works are carefully selected from those in international
science museums, METU Public and Science Centre, TUBøTAK Science Convivial and Popular Science Books,
considering the age of the participants. Assessments applied before and after each activity
2. Method
2.1. Subjects
One hundred and forty nine 7-year-olds and two hundred and sixty five 6-year-olds participated in this study. The
children were students at an elementary school and nursery schools in Isparta, Turkey (Table 1).
Table 1. Name of the schools and number of participants included in the study
2.2. Procedure
Overall ten activities were applied to the participants. Some of the activities were planned to realize individually
and some of them in a group containing 5 children, thus supporting their both in-group and individual success. Those
ten activities were assessed by pre- and final evaluation forms filled by each participant.
2.2.1. Description of the activities
The aim of the first activity called “Sea Transportation” was to realize the role of the motor in vehicles. In that
participants created a simple motor vehicle by using plastic bottles under the supervisor of the consultant. The motor
was constructed by an elastic band winded by a pen. After construction participants were floated their motor vehicles
to see the role. In pre- and final evaluation form, the participants were asked to draw a motor vehicle for sea.
In the second activity, namely “Formation of White-light”, children prepared a circle containing blue-, red- and
green- colored segments made of carton. The circle had an elastic band at the center for spinning. At the end of the
construction, each participant tried to form the white-light by spinning the circle prepared. In the pre-evaluation
form, children were asked to paint the objects with the real colors to understand whether they know the name of the
colors, and in the final evaluation they were asked to identify the colors that form white-light.
“Does air lift up the objects?” was the third activity aiming to understand the lifting power of the air. In that, each
participant was competed with others to lift the object up to maximum on the scale of the experimental set-up (Figure
1). In the pre-evaluation form, they were asked to follow the labyrinth consisting of a kite, a balloon, and a
parachute, respectively. They created their flying objects from the plasticine.
The aim of the fourth activity, “Importance of an air”, was to recognize air is necessary for living, burning, and a
special burning process; respiration. Participants observed that burning does not continuing if air does not exist with
the well-known model made up of candela and a glass. Pre-evaluation was a drama work containing a question of “Which objects contain air inside?”, and final evaluation was a multiple choice mini-test considering the same
question.
“Let’s make a stethoscope” was the fifth activity aiming to realize the place of the heart in a body and to
understand its role. Participants were encouraged to build up a stethoscope by using a plastic funnel and a tube. At
the end, they listened the heart of the other participant before and after jumping. They were asked to draw any five of
the doctors’ tool in the pre-evaluation form. In the final evaluation form, a stethoscope was constructed with its parts
by each participant on a sheet.
The sixth activity was called as “Animation production”. All of the children made their simple animation
machine model by cutting the segments of cartoon and pasting
on its respective place. They saw an animation by turning the
model itself. Children numbered the figures in the preevaluation
form corresponding to the evolution order. They
were asked to place animation segments onto its respective
place in the final evaluation form.
Understanding the solution process and the solubility
concept were achieved by an activity called “Let’s built a
tower”. Children were allowed to build his/her tower with ten
cubic sugars in a plastic dish. Then colored water suspension
was added at the same time for all participants’ dishes by a
consultant. They observed climbing of the colored water up of
the tower. They compete with each other whose building will
be the latest building falls down. Both pre- and final-evaluation forms were multiple choice tests asking “Which
object melts?”, and “Which objects contain melted sugar inside?”, respectively.
In the activity “What is the microscope used for?”, children were introduced with a child microscope and
investigated some objects prepared before; like a wing of a fly etc. In the pre-evaluation form they painted a simple
microscope picture with colored sands to determine whether they saw it before or not. In the final evaluation form
the puzzle of a microscope were applied to each participant.
To get an acceptance of washing hands with a soap to the participants, they were allowed to clear their hands
coated by silver (model microbes) by using different objects; paper towel, wet wipes, and soap-water combination,
respectively. They answered a mini-test asking “Which objects are clear?”. They produce a way going to the clear
son by choosing the appropriate materials in the labyrinth.
In the final activity called “What is the difference in between a volcano and the other mountains?”, participants
observed simple volcano explosion and its results. They were asked to sign “Which objects are hot?” in the preevaluation
form. Finally children were allowed to choose the true
mountain as a volcano on the given figures in final evaluation
form.
Figure 1. Experimental set-up for the activities namely (a) “Does air lift
up the objects?”, (b) “Animation production”.
2.3. Evaluation
All activities were saved with a camera (Canon Legria HF
R106), artistic materials (such as plasticine-made objects,
Sibel Yigitarslan et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 51 ( 2012 ) 512 – 515 515
microscobe drawings painted with sand etc.) of each participant saved with a photograph (Olympus SZ-10). Pre- and
final-evaluation forms of each participant were collected when finished. All of the materials obtained for an activity
were assessed. Truly answered each mini test had a point of hundred, and each true object had a point that gets
hundred in a whole. For example, in an activity called sea transportation; real sea transport vehicle drawing got fifty
points and motor drawing on true place got another fifty points. Each true object had twenty points in artistic studies,
and selection of colors in sand-painting was accepted as true answer. When all the materials of the participant were
assessed, mathematical average of each activity was calculated with a computer to get the participant’s individual
success. Then success of the school was calculated by following the same way considering all of the participants in
that. In all of the assessments 95% confidence was used, and student’s t-test was applied as a statistical method.
3. Results
The childrens’ responses on each activity demonstrated that experiencing resulted always an increase in
understanding (Table 2). This increase depends both on an age of the participant and whether the knowledge known
previously or not. If the information is known previously, the success of the activity reaches a value of 95%,
whereas if the information is new one, its success lowers down to 76%. The age of the participant is another factor
for the percent of success. In fact, nearly 84% success was achieved by 7-aged children, but 74% success was
achieved by 6-aged participants.
Tab
4. Conclusion
In this study, application of multiple intelligence theory on understanding of the basic principles of natural science
was investigated. At the end of the performed activities in seven different schools, minimum 76%, maximum 95% ,
and overall 86% increase was achieved in understanding of the basic principles with the usage of artistic activities of
414 participants (6- and 7-aged). The project financially supported by TUBøTAK was rewarded by Lifelong
Learning Programme of European Committee with STENCIL certificate.