Korean High School Students' Understanding of Matter Transformations

초록

This study focuses on how high school students can connect the idea of the conservation of matter in explaining physical, chemical, and biochemical changes in environmental systems. Understanding environmental processes requires accounting for the flow of matter within and between systems and using atomic-molecular models to describe macroscopic processes. Most students were unable to do this consistently, especially for transformations between gases and solid or liquid substances. Students attributed three characteristics to solids or liquids but not always to gases: a) mass, (students tend to treat gas as nothing and therefore having little or no mass), b) chemical identity, (students tend to refer to gas as air or oxygen no matter what the actual gas is or wherever it comes from), and c) matter-energy distinction, (students tend to consider the conditions or forms of energy as matter rather than as transformation of matter-energy). Students’ abilities to apply fundamental principles depended on the complexity of structures and processes of the systems. It is suggested that science curriculum incorporate environmental systems and processes as the conditions and processes of scientific event, enabling our students to understand matter transformations in both micro- and macroscopic explanations of scientific processes.

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