Environmental consciousness and education relationship: Determination of how environment-based concepts are placed in Turkish science curricula

Environment has become a most popular area since the last three decades. Environmentalists are supposed to play a great role in urgent environmental issues such as ozone depletion, greenhouse effect, global warming, air pollution, and the like. Environmental chemistry, which combines the application of chemical principles with an effort to maintain and enhance environmental quality, is representative of these changes. These factors indicate the clear link between human being and environmental chemistry. It is noteworthy that many of these issues involve understanding chemical reactions and this makes environmental chemistry a particularly important and topical discipline. The world’s leadership is demanding of the chemistry community, the often competing outcomes of the continued development and production of massive amounts of chemicals that improve the human standard of living, and the responsible management, reduction, treatment, and disposal of chemicals (Aram, 1995). Environmental problems are due to a combination of several factors. These factors cause both environment and health problems. Some of the problems faced by humankind directly or indirectly are ozone depletion, greenhouse effect, acid rain, global warming, air-water pollution, and fossil fuel combustion. The chemical materials and processes are the most important among these. In addition, the exceed using of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) cause several environmental problems. Noticing the bad effects of chemistry and traditional energy sources on environment and human life, environmentalists are trying to find solutions for a better life. For this, teaching about environment issues and the preservation of the world’s environment has become increasingly important across the globe (Ko and Lee, 2003). Those efforts show the importance of humans’ awareness about these problems in taking precautions. This awareness should be recognized by all countries for the safe of next generations. During the last decades the trend for environmental protection has expanded in various areas including education. Paraskevopoulos et.al. (1998) state that (a) if people are aware of the need for and the ways of protecting the environment they will act to preserve it, (b) schools should assume responsibility for educating about environmental protection and (c) environmental education can be effective as a part of a school curriculum. Increased concern about the environment has paralleled the development of environmental education in the world. With this regard, both developed and developing countries have taken this reality into consideration in designing curricula for all schools. Some arrangements have also been made in science education curricula in Turkey as a developing country in last decades. Of the various subjects taught in secondary schools, science is often perceived as one that can make a significant contribution to environmental education (Ko and Lee, 2003). Therefore, our primarily aim in this study is to determine how the Turkish science curricula contain environmental concepts after some of the attempts on environmental issues in the world were presented. There have been steady developments of national and international declarations relevant to environmental issues. The first attempt in this regard was the Stockholm Declaration recognized the interdependency between humanity and the environment. The most important results emerged from the declaration were to provide fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life in an environment and to improve the environment for present and future generations (UNESCO, 1972). In addition, this declaration stated the need of environmental education from grade school to adulthood. After this first attempt, a number of similar assemblies were made. In these meetings, some decisions were taken for environmental issues in local and global scale. These meetings are given in Table 1 chronologically.

Year	Location	Declaration
1972	Stockholm / Sweden	The Stockholm Declaration
1977	Tibilisi/ Russia	Tibilisi Declaration
1990	Talloires/ France	The Talloires declaration
1991	Halifax / Canada	The Halifax declaration
1992	Rio de Janeiro / Brazil	United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
1993	Kyoto / Japan	The Kyoto Declaration
1993	Swansea / Wales	Swansea Declaration
1994	Geneva / Switzerland	CRE-Copernicus Charter
1997	Thessaloniki / Greece	Declaration of Thessaloniki

The Tibilisi Declaration was one of the most important moments in the evolution of international declarations related to EE. In this declaration, it was discussed EE principals and some international strategies of action including some advises for education in all levels, informing and educating the public were offered (Wright, 2002). In another declaration, the Talloires Declaration, it was stated the importance of higher education firstly. It concluded that universities must work together towards environmental sustainability (UNESCO, 1990). The Halifax Declaration’s main goal was to consider the role of universities in improving the capacity of countries to address environment and development issues. The most important results of this declaration were; i) recognizing the key role of universities in the world at serious risk of irreparable environmental damage, ii) reconstructing environmental policies and practices to contribute to sustainable environmental development on national and international levels (Wright, 2002). United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, named Agenda 21, was related to environmental sustainability, specifically addresses issues related to sustainability in education (UNESCO, 1972). The three main results were: (a) reorienting education towards sustainable development; (b) increasing public awareness of environmental issues; and iii) promoting environmental training among educators. The Kyoto Declaration stressed the ethical obligation of universities to the environment and sustainable development principles. A final feature of the declaration was its challenge to universities not only promotes sustainability through environmental education, but also through the physical operations of a university (The KYOTO Declaration, 1993). The Swansea Declaration included the need for universities to review their physical operations, the desire for environmentally literate students and faculty, and an emphasis on the ethical obligations universities have to present and future generations (UNESCO, 1993). The CRE-Copernicus Charter was developed by the Conference of European Rectors (CRE). The Charter stressed the need for a new frame of mind and set of environmental values within the higher education community (CRE-Copernicus, 1994). The Thessaloniki Declaration argued that the concept of environmental sustainability must be linked with poverty, population, human rights, and health. With regard to formal education, this declaration affirmed that all subject disciplines must address issues related to the environment and sustainable development and that university curriculum must be reoriented towards a holistic approach to education (UNESCO, 1997).

Three main points emerged from these meetings related environment were; (i) to introduce bad factors that effect environment, (ii) to make citizens conscious about the environment, and (iii) to put environmental concepts into curricula.

Several of the environmental problems presently faced by humankind are directly or indirectly caused by misusing of environment and unconsciousness of the society about environmental education. Although the environmental consciousness results from the interaction between the society and family, formal education given in this process is also important in increasing the environmental consciousness of the society. Environmental education goes beyond providing students with simple information about environmental issues. As defined in the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education; “environmental education is a process that aims to develop an environmentally literate citizenry that can compete in our global economy, has the skills, knowledge, and inclinations to make well-informed choices, and exercises the rights and responsibilities of members of a community” (NAAEE, 2001). The scientific and technological issues surrounding environmental problems epitomize why teaching scientific literacy is so vital to environmental science courses (Gill and Burke, 1999). Professionally-executed environmental education is a comprehensive process to help people understand the environment, their place in it, environmental problems and related issues (Dove, 1996; Archie and McCrea, 1998). And also, according to Papadimitriou (2004), today educators are convinced that research in pupils’ understanding of many aspects of environmental issues will be valuable to teachers so as to teach pupils more effectively by taking the research findings into account. It may therefore necessitate an in-depth evaluation of the course curricula of any environmental education program. When the developed countries’ curricula are examined, it is seen that environment based concepts are included in these contexts. But it is impossible to say the same for underdeveloped and developing countries.