BRINGING IN CULTURAL AWARENESS TO PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS THROUGH MUSEUM EDUCATION (EXAMPLE OF ANKARA MUSEUM OF FOUNDATION WORKS)

Relationship between museum and the visitors becomes the stage for new developments in each passing day in 21st century. Developments in the understanding of museum and museology turn from the introverted attitudes to outward applications. Each museum will have a message for the visitors. A message of the particular museum with his works, objects and exhibitions may become meaningful at the end of an interactive museum life and museum education process. Personal, social and physical dimensions of this life covers interaction with objects through the perceptions and interests, making observations, expressing feelings, using imagination, linking your own life, having the message of the museum with the museums’ vision, reading the objects, sharing cultural values and life, searching the truth, making applications and evaluation. Many museums prepare collections and educational packages by type of the museum contents. Each class in primary and secondary education programs must include lot of gains which address the cultural awareness at different levels. This study includes the activities which are designed in line with the gains in cultural awareness for elementary school education and the application and procedures of these activities in the Museum of Foundation Works in Ankara, Turkey. In this context, activities which are suitable and convenient for every unit and the gains of Social Studies Courses, Visual Arts Courses and Art Courses for 6th, 7th and 8th classes of primary schools. These activities which will be subject to the statement, were designed in the context of the doctoral course "Museums of Art Education", then they were applied by the researchers in the museum with students from Ankara University Faculty of Educational Sciences Department of Elementary School Teacher’s Training Programme and developed with the opinions of students. In the last stage of the study, museum education practice applied under the leadership of classroom teacher candidates with the students of Şereflikoçhisar Regional Primary Boarding School in Ankara and Social Services and Child Protection Agency in the Museum of Foundation Works. Students were asked their ideas about the museum and museum education activities before and after the museum application. Suggestions for educational applications are developed and presented in accordance with these views.