Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate thel present situation and to analyze the needs and problems of the $\ulcorner$Environment$\lrcorner$ subject in secondary school of the current 6th curriculum in Korea and to indicate the directions of improvement environmental education. The first step of this research was to review the related literature and the result indicated that the number of secondary schools that selected $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject and the teachers who have $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ certification of a second-major has increased yearly but it shows much difference by regions. The second step was questionnaire surveys on 60 $\ulcorner$Environment$\lrcorner$ teachers in secondary school. According to the survey, 65% of teachers are not certificated and 50% of teachers have no self-confidence of teaching. And most of teachers thought it was difficult to select the modules out of textbook and teachers had difficulties such as the lack of appropriate reference materials and instructive experience of their own instructive experience of active researches. The third step was the questionnaire survey on a students group(606) learning the $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject and a students group(621) without the $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject in secondary school. The group learning $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject showed significantly higher scores than those of the group without $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject in most items. And among the students having $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject, the first year students achieved the highest score, and it revealed that the teaching was most effective to them. The suggestions based on the results of this study are as follows. First, the uncertifiable teachers currently teaching $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject should be given priority to the second-major certificate training program ; which are diverse in contents according to differences of majors and levels. Second, specific and practical re-training programs for the certificated teachers teaching the subject are needed. Third, considerable and continual adjustment of the textbook yearly is required in addition to regular curriculum amendment. Fourth, the more efficient and actual teaching.learning methods of $\ulcorner$environment$\lrcorner$ subject education that can attract students' interest must be developed. Fifth, it is most desirable to have first year students select the subject.
