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Asia-Pacific
Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 7, Issue 2, Article
7 (Dec., 2006) Haluk ÖZMEN & Orhan KARAMUSTAFAOĞLU Environmental consciousness and education relationship: Determination of how environment-based concepts are placed in Turkish science curricula
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Some kind
of negativeness parallel to the developments in both science and technology in
the world affects the environment. By the increasing of the negativeness in
the recent years, arouse the interest of people towards environment, made more
groups concern about it and forced them to take some precautions. When the
literature related to environment was investigated, especially it was
understood that the gaining of the environmental conscious was on the front.
Especially developed countries conducted many of the studies related to the
pollution of air and water, acid rains, chemical wastes and global warming
which were proved like the hazardous to the environment and consequently to
the human health in order to make the people become conscious. Related
to this subject, in the last 30 years, providing the contribution of the
scientists, some kind of meetings was arranged and some radical decisions were
taken. In these studies, by emphasizing the importance of the environmental
conscious in order to develop the environmental conscious of the individuals,
it was brought out that the environmental subjects had to take position in
every level of the primary education to the higher education. However,
environmental education is still its infancy in many countries, and systematic
efforts are not being made to incorporate environmental concepts in any way
into the school curriculum. Although there is some efforts related to
environmental education, the current status in Turkey is at the stage of just
beginning and the establishment of a baseline for planning an environmental
education curriculum in Turkey is an urgent need as stated by Tuncer and
colleaguesed byblishment of a baseline for planning an environmental education
curriculum in Turkey is an urgent needf just beginn (2005). When it is thought
that the basis of this study is to determine the environmental concepts placed
in the curriculum, the data proves that there is a great necessity to add
environmental concepts to the curricula.
The
efforts related to the education of the environment conscious were started in
1972 by the help of United Nations and also in time more progress is made.
Between the related studies, it was seen that the peak point was reached in
1992 in Rio. The document of Agenda 21, which includes the necessary plans and
activities, has also the sustainable development plans of the current century
in order to apply the Rio conclusions (UNCED, 1992). By taking this document
into consideration, in Turkey, Turkish National Environment Activism Plan
prepared by The State Planning Organization (SPO) in 1997 is a useful plan
according to the development plan and also the decisions are related to
education. In accordance with this plan’s decision, the committee of the
experts who investigated the environmental facilities in the name of OECD
eventuated in Turkey, submitted their opinion and suggestions are related to
the subject as a report. The importance of the giving attention to the
education for effective environmental protection was surely underlined in some
parts of the relevant report.
Especially,
the chemicals are the first reason to cause environmental pollution and its
importance should be included in the units or subjects about environment of
science course books. With this opinion, especially developed countries take
care of these items and give more places related to the environmental subjects
in their primary and secondary school curricula (Swan and Spiro, 1995). For
instance, Weston Creek Primary School in Australia included environmental
subject into its curriculum, name is integrated curriculum 2005, besides
science and technology subjects. This program consists of 4 terms. In the 4th
term called ‘Earth First’, they have been teaching environmental subjects
and issues completely (http://www.westonps.act.edu.au). In addition,
The Michindoh and Goodwillie Environmental Schools in USA also include
supporting environmental subjects in their primary and secondary school
curricula for their summer term (http://www.michindoh.com and http://www.fhps.k12.mi.us/goodwillie.htm). According to the results of public
opinion survey conducted by National Environmental Education and Training
Foundation (NEETF), 95% of parents support environmental education in the
schools in USA (NAAEE, 2001). Beside this, the developing countries by giving
attention to the decisions from the kind of conferences in the whole world,
try to make difference in the educational programs by the help of their own
facilities. In this context, in Turkey, which is a developing country, some of
the facilities were started but the outcomes are not in the same level as
wanted.
It is
well known that energy sources also cause environmental pollution. Decreasing
these negative effects can be achieved by using renewable energy sources (RES)
and making citizens conscious about using energy effectively. That
energy-related concepts are included into science education programs at all
levels is a useful way for this. It is also known that the studies in the
educational programs for configuring the environment and energy concepts,
which are directly related to the human livings, are really in limited numbers
(Doğan and Akaydın, 2001; Keser, Özmen and Akdeniz, 2003). The
results of these studies show that energy-related concepts are not given place
in science curricula, adequately. With this regard, in this study, the
importance of the courses in the applied sciences in primary and secondary
school levels were investigated. Also it was investigated that how much
attention was given to these course books. In this study, the new concepts,
which are taught now in the schools like the applied science, biology, physics
and chemistry, course books were added. As seen from the Table 3, in the
physics and chemistry course books, no related environmental subjects were
seen in the 9th-11th levels, the subject of the ecology was given in the
biology course books in the 9th level. Close to this subject, the importance
of the soil, water, and temperature, radiation of the sun, nitrogen, carbon,
oxygen cycle; the concept of ecosystem were given a lot. In the applied
science course books, while the environmental subjects were encountered in the
4th-7th levels of course books, in the 8th level no related subjects were
seen. In the 4th level applied science course books, under the title of “to
know our environment”, the events happen in air, water, land areas were
given attention in order to understand how they affect the living things. In
the level of 5th, under the title of “living beings and relationships
between the worlds”, the importances of the small organisms which affect the
human life were investigated in order to get the interaction between
environments. In the level of 6th, under the title of “environment and
plant”, the advantages of the plants and its importance to the human beings
were investigated. In the level of 7th, in the unit of “being a conscious
friend to environment”, the taking environmental precautions in the industry
development, the importance concepts in some facilities in the field of
agriculture, protecting the water sources, recycling of the consuming
nutriments and energy sources and the effective usage of this sources are
investigated. And also, ecosystem concept, the natural events which have
greater effects on the degradation of ecosystem and natural balance, such as
lightning, earthquake, flood, volcano explosions, and hurricane are explained
in detail. In addition, the negative effects of excessive population growth,
unplanned industrialization and ignorant use of natural sources on environment
and nature are stressed. In the section entitled as being a conscious friend
to environment, to prevent environment from degradation the precautions needed
to be taken are also examined in detail. When the curricula is examined in
detail, it is seen that while the relation between human and environment is
handled superficially in the present textbooks, on the other hand, the
importance of the environment on the human life, the factors causing
environmental pollution, the precautions preventing this pollution are not
mentioned sufficiently. And also, we did not come across any topics relating
to the water, sources of water, water pollution and causing factors and water
cycling for human life. Such a case is the most important lack encountered in
the Turkish curricula. Beginning from the elementary level it leads the pupils
not to be aware of environmental conscious. When they grow up they neglect the
environmental problems furthermore they acquire habits to pollute it. Adding
the environment-related topics into the curricula would help the students to
be informed about the importance of environment and water cleanliness and the
precautions taken to prevent to pollution. Most of the problems can be solved
with the help of the studies when they are carried from the national level to
international.
As seen from the results, some concepts related to environment were placed in the curriculum in order to make students more conscious. It is clear that they are not good enough to cover the expectations. There are certain environmental issues, such as ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect, which are not only complex but also abstract in nature (Boyes, Chamber and Stanisstreet, 1995). Moreover, research studies have found that the textbooks used in schools have inadequate or sometimes incorrect information (Soyibo, 1995). Because, the given information related to environment in the course books, generally not aim to make the people more conscious but it explains the events theoretically. By giving the necessary information to the people about natural events (disasters), it decreases the negative impression of people towards environment and its affect. It is important to make people more conscious in order to understand what kind of precautions should be taken. Environmental science informs how to protect natural resources, gives them the tools they need to teach others, and serves to develop the next generation of land stewards (NAAEE, 2001). This consciousness can be achieved by including more environmental concepts or chapters into the science curricula.
