숲 체험 활동이 유아의 환경에 대한 태도와 과학적 탐구능력에 미치는 영향

The Effects of the Forest Field Trip Program on Children s Attitude toward the Environment and their Ability of Engage in Scientific Inquiry

본 연구는 만 5세 유아들의 숲 체험 활동이 유아의 환경에 대한 태도, 과학적 탐구능력에 미치는 영향을 알아보는데 목적이 있다. 연구대상은 부산시 금정구에 소재한 D유치원과 N유치원의 만5세반 150명 유아 중 무선표집한 46명이며 중산층이상의 생활수준이 비슷한 환경에 거주하는 유아로 선정하였다. 연구결과를 살펴보면, 첫째, 숲 체험 프로그램에 참여한 유아와 그렇지 않은 유아의 환경에 대한 태도는 두 집단 간에 유의미한 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났으며, 숲 체험 활동 프로그램이 유아의 환경에 대한 태도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 숲 체험 프로그램에 참여한 유아와 그렇지 않은 유아의 과학적 탐구능력은 두 집단 간에 유의미한 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났으며, 숲 체험 활동 프로그램이 유아의 과학적 탐구능력에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 숲 체험 활동은 유아의 환경에 대한 태도에 긍정적인 영향을 미친다고 할 수 있으며, 유아의 과학적 탐구능력에도 효과가 있는 것으로 결론지을 수 있다.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of 5-year-old children s forest field trip experiences on their attitude toward the environment and their ability to engage in scientific inquiry. Based on the purpose of the study, the research questions were established as follows:(1)What were the effects of young children s forest field trip experiences on their attitude toward the environment?(2)What were the effects of young children s forest field trip experiences on their ability to engage in scientific inquiry?The subjects in this study consisted of 46 children (5 years old) enrolled in kindergartens in Busan. To investigate the effects of the forest field trip program on children s attitude toward the environment and their ability to engage in scientific inquiry, the difference in the experimental and control group s scores were compared. Thus, a pre-test and a post-test were administered in both groups. The pre-test scores of both the experimental group and the control group were treated as co-variance. The data were analyzed using ANCOVA in the SPSS 14.0 program. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, children who participated in the forest field trip program had higher scores on environmental attitude than children who did not participate in it. This means that the forest field trip program positively influenced children s attitudes toward the environment. Second, children who experienced the forest field trip program had higher scores than children who did not experience it in all subcategories of scientific inquiry ability: prediction, observation, measurement, classification, and discussion. Thus, it was evident that the forest field trip program positively influenced children s ability to engage in scientific inquiry.