Microscopy among the students of the elementary school is believed to be one of the more interesting practical activities. However, they often have difficulties in understanding the microscope and its operations. While working with the microscope, students are attracted by the microscope on most occasions because one can see things which are not visible by a naked eye well with the microscope. In Slovenian elementary schools, the students are acquainted by microscope in more detail during the lessons of natural sciences in the sixth and the seventh grade. The curriculum for the natural sciences includes a lot of goals. Therefore, the teachers have difficulties in the realization of practical work from the perspective of quantity. However, practical work is very important within the subject of natural sciences. Students participate actively in the lesson. At the same time, they learn to ask questions, form the ideas, and explain. All this develops their natural science competencies.
The goals of our research were to ascertain what kind of prior knowledge on microscope and microscopy Slovenian students of the sixth grade have. We also wished to ascertain whether it is possible to improve the knowledge of the students of the sixth grade about the microscope and microscopy with a lesson plan designed specifically for this purpose. We were also interested whether the students of the sixth grade are interested in microscopy within the framework of natural sciences lessons. We performed the research at three elementary schools in Upper Carniola. The sample was composed of 250 students of the sixth grade. We gained the data with two tests of knowledge. In the meantime, we performed a lesson on microscopy. The students achieved an unsatisfactory result (45.1%) on the pretest, while the knowledge on microscopy was satisfactory on the posttest (61.1%). We ascertained that students show much more knowledge if they participate in a practical lesson. By means of research, I came to the conclusion that knowledge of the students improved after the performed lesson as the students realized that the microscope does not show the details on the organism we watch the best. After the performed practical lesson we also realized that the knobs at the side of the microscope will not enlarge or minimize the picture: they will sharpen the picture. They learned when it is best to use the microscope to watch and when to use a magnifying lens. By all means, the students expressed positive relationship towards the natural sciences subject and towards microscopy.
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