The Analysis of Contents Related to Environmental Education in the Elementary School Textbooks of 7th Korea National Curriculum

제7차 초등학교 교육과정 교과서의 환경 관련 내용 분석

The purpose of this research is to analyze the contents related to environmental education(EE) in the elementary school textbooks for the following areas: well-balanced EE, and development of EE curriculum/teachers' guide in elementary school level. For the purpose of this analysis, elementary school teachers, education administrators and EE specialists were involved. Eleven content areas of EE, namely: natural environment, artificial environment, population, industrialization, natural resources, pollution, environmental conservation, environment sanitation, environment ethics, environmentally sound and sustainable development(ESSD), and daily li(e as a consumer, were analyzed. The results of the analysis are as follows: 1. There are total 1,140 contents related to EE in the elementary school textbooks of 7th Korea National Curriculum. 2. The textbooks of grade 6 contain the most number of EE contents, while the least number is in the textbooks of grade 3. 3. The subject that includes EE contents equally in its textbooks is social studies, and the subjects that relate a lot to EE are Korean language, science, and social studies respectively. 4. The content areas that are included a lot in textbooks are' natural environment', 'pollution', and' environmental conservation' respectively, while the contents of 'population','industrialization', 'ESSD' are included to a lesser degree. The content area most frequently mentioned in the textbooks is 'pollution', and the number of the contents are increasing along with the grade level. 5. Generally, the content areas of 'population', 'industrialization', and 'natural resources' are reflected in the textbooks to a lesser degree than others. 'Industrialization' is not included in the textbooks of grade 2, while 'population' is not included in ones of grade 4. According to the result, more concern about balanced EE in content areas is needed at the elementary school level. Similar studies tot K and secondary school levels are needed. The developmental study of EE guide book and teacher training for teaching EE using the book are also recommended.