Abstract
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest international scientific project in history. It serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory. The purpose of the present study is to examine the effectiveness of teaching the experiments of the ISS by using the Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) strategy to develop secondary school students' attitudes towards space exploration and their scientific explanations. A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test experimental/control group design was utilized. The experimental group consisted of 38 grade 11 students, and the control group consisted of 37 students. A Likert-5 scale was created to measure attitudes towards space exploration. An open-ended scientific explanation instrument was prepared to measure students‘ ability to construct scientific explanations. A unit and a teacher‘s guide were prepared to help in teaching the ISS experiments by using the POE strategy. The data collection instruments were used as pre-tests before the implementation and as post-tests at the end of the implementation. Results indicated that using the POE strategy to teach the ISS experiments has a positive effect on learners‘ attitudes towards space exploration and their scientific explanations.
Keywords: International Space Station (ISS), Predict-Observe-Explain (POE), attitudes towards space exploration, scientific explanations.