Comprasion of 2009 and 2017 Life Science Course Curricula

Abstract

As the main source of life science is the life itself, life science courses are the main dynamics of socialization in primary school education. Life science's curriculum, which was updated in 2017, was started to be implemented gradually from the 1st grade in 2017-2018. In that context, the main objective of this study is to make a comparison between the life science curricula of years 2009 and 2017. The case study method was used in the qualitatıve design for the current study. Data was gathered via critical sampling and the life science curriculum guide of 2009 and 2017 that were approved by the Ministry of Education. Objectives, content, teaching-learning process, evaluation of life science curricula were compared according to their vision, objectives, skills, values and approaches. Both curricula have similarities in terms of vision, objectives and evaluation methods. However, it can be argued that 2017 curriculum lacks concepts like values, skills and acquisitions about Kemalism. Moreover, it adopts a unitbased approach and it lacks adequate level of explanation especially for how to implement objectives, special weeks and days. We believe that our study will provide valuable contributions to the forthcoming researches on life sciences and will support the understanding on life science studies curriculum in Turkey.