Chemical education in korea

2.4. The science curriculum of junior high school
Science education at the junior high school level aims at the enrichment and advancement of the scientific knowledge acquired at the elementary school level and providing the basis for high school science education. The course at this level is called "Science". This course is designed to help students have scientific attitudes, inventive ideas, and abilities to make reasonable decisions through the development of inquiry process skills and comprehension of scientific knowledge.
The objectives of the "Science" course are itemized as follows: 1) to acquire scientific inquiry processes and apply them to solving problems in everyday life; 2) to comprehend basic scientific knowledge and apply it to explaining natural phenomena; 3) to build interests in science and science learning and develop attitudes to inquire continuously; and 4) to understand the influence of science on the development of technology and the progress of society.
The contents of "Science" are divided into two areas: 1) knowledge area that includes motion and energy, matter, life, and earth; and 2) inquiry area that includes observation, measuring, classification, experimentation, interpreting data, investigation, and discussion. Although concepts in chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science are taught as a combined science at this level, the units of the course are clearly divided into the four disciplines. The chemistry contents in the science curriculum of junior high school are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3. The chemistry contents in the science curriculum of junior high school.

Grade	Unit		Content
7	Properties of matter and separation of mixtures	(a)	Knowledge: boiling point, melting point, density, solubility, fractional distillation, chromatography
		(b)	Inquiry activity: measurement of density, measurements of boiling point and melting point, distillation, use of balance
8	Composition of matter	(a)	Knowledge: compounds, change of viewpoints on matter, symbols for elements, equations of simple chemical reactions, flame test, atoms, law of definite proportion, molecules, Avogadro's law, molecular motion
		(b)	Inquiry activity: measurement of mass before and after chemical reactions, observation of color during flame test, interpretation of the data on relationship between volume and pressure of gas
9	Chemical reactions	(a)	Knowledge: electrolytes and non-electrolytes, ions, ionic reactions, detection of ions, properties of acids and bases, indicators, neutralization reaction, neutralization of acidic soil, oxidation/reduction reactions
		(b)	Inquiry activity: observation of ionic reactions, neutralization titration of acids and bases, measurement of the acidity of rain, inference on the reactivity order of metals

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