Elements of Science in Cypriot Folk Stories

Abstract

Children need literature. Literary and folk creations that enrich and beautify their limited lives and life experiences that are shaped only by their families and close surroundings, that teaches them concepts and values are very good and valuable guides to children in many other ways. Folk and fairy tales, nursery rhymes, riddles, puzzles, lullabies, proverbs are just some of these creations. Nursery rhymes in children's literature help improve language skills, riddles also help practice and improve language skills and the development of intelligence and fairy tales improve children's imagination. And children meet stories and folk tales after they have spent enough time with the heroes of the fairy tales and when it is time to meet the real world and heroes. Story's definition in a dictionary is telling an event orally or verbally and prose describing a real or imaginary event. As a part of literary, story is more realistic than a fairy tale since it describes events that have or may happen and they are shorter than a novel (Şahin and Turan,2010:148). The source of these stories date back to old India. It was claimed that the first example of stories have been “1001 Arabian Nights” (Demirel, 2010:198). Stories are narrations that are longer than fairy tales and shorter than novels. Children may find many information, ideas and comments given answers to questions like “why” and “how” they ask in order to solve the mysteries of the story (Oğuzkan, 2006).This study tries to determine the scientific elements in few Cypriot Folk Stories selected via content analysis method. The researches have selected themes “Earth and the Cosmos, Physical Events, Matter and Change, Livings and Life” and have created list of codes related with these themes. The researches have applied content analysis method to the content of few Turkish Cypriot Folk Tales compiled by Mustafa Gökçeoğlu according to the related themes and codes. At the end of the research, the scientific elements detected in the folk tales have been indicated in tables classified according to the themes and codes and the examples have been shared. It is believed that the results of this research will help Turkish, literature, science- technology and classroom teachers who are looking for interdisciplinary integrations with regards to teaching science and will help them gain a different point of view.