• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.404-414
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• 2013

This study was conducted for investigating the characteristics of children's experiences in plants and their relationship with ecological literacy. 578 primary students participated in our survey, who consisted of 240 urban and 338 semi-rural children. The questionnaire for this study was composed of items about their experiences in plants and ecological literacy. Children's experiences in plants were classified to 5 factors; indirect/observable, living, investigative, negative, and active experiences in plants. The most important factor of them is indirect/observable experience which tends to be passive. Children's ecological literacy and experiences in plants were not different with a place of residence but had difference with sexual. Most children's experiences in plants had correlation with ecological literacy. Ecological sensibility was the most important variable for explanation of the relation between children's ecological literacy and experiences in plants. It is recommended that supplying experiments in plants to children is important for promoting their ecological literacy.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.55-72
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• 2015

This study investigated the relationship between the ecological literacy and the sense of happiness of child day care teachers. One hundred twenty -five child care teachers in the Incheon and Kyunggi areas were participated in this study. Data responses from day care teachers were analyzed sing SPSS 17. The results were as follows. First, generally, there was a significant difference in ecological literacy depending on child day care teachers' carre, experiences in early childhood, and in-service teacher program. However, there was no difference in ecological literacy except in ecological literacy attitude depending on child day care teachers' academic area. Second, there was a correlations between the ecological literacy and the sense of happiness of child day care teachers. This study will provide basic information to better understand the relationship between the ecological literacy and the sense of happiness of child day care teachers.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.125-147
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• 2024

Objective: This study aims to implement an ecological transition education program for young children, based on a project approach, to investigate its effectiveness in enhancing sustainable development awareness, ecological literacy, and problem-solving skills. Methods: In this study, 56 five-year-old children from a preschool in S City were assigned to either a quasi-experimental group or a control group, with 28 children in each group. The project-based ecological transition education program for young children was conducted from July 14 to September 15, 2023. The experimental group explored the themes of 'marine life' and 'pets and animal welfare,' while the control group focused on different topics. The research employed independent sample t-tests and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) for data analysis. Results: The project-based ecological transition education program effectively enhanced young children's awareness of sustainable development, ecological literacy, and problem-solving skills. Conclusion/Implications: This study is significant in developing an integrated, project-based ecological transition education program within a play-centered curriculum. It demonstrates how sustainable values can be effectively incorporated into play. Furthermore, the findings can serve as foundational data for implementing educational and childcare programs that nurture young children to become ecological citizens, leading sustainable futures.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to research new paradigms of environmental ethics and environmental ethics education to overcome ecological crisis and to develop an alternative model of systematic environmental ethics education for establishing eco-centred life values. According to deep ecologists, they assert the necessity of basic reorientation of crucial components of present political, economic and social orders to overcome ecological crisis today. This means the movement from the mechanistic worldview to the ecological worldview and the shift from Dominant Social Paradigm(DSP) to New Ecological Paradigm(NEP). Environmental ethics education should be 'eco-centred environmental ethics education'which makes some contribution to overcome ecological crisis and to create new alternatives. Also it should be not a simple behavior change but 'eco-centred environmental ethics education', what is called, as 'ecological literacy education'which changes the views of values, thoughts and attitudes etc. In this, as a new social curriculum, 'ecological literacy education'means to cultivate the ability which can recognize environmental problems correctly and to overcome ecological crisis wisely we face with today. To perform this ecological environmental ethics education, we suggested 'eco-centred life values', we place a criterion of moral value judgment according to 'ecological conscience'on 'life', and we presented 'an alternative model of environmental ethics education' giving consideration to human being, nature and environment at the same time.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.284-297
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• 2012

We developed an educational program using soil seed bank for promoting ecological literacy of children. The initial program was based on the modification of scientific methods used by ecologists. A pilot application was conducted to 4th~6th grade students. In that result, the program was most effective to 4th grade students in terms of ecological knowledge and attitude. Observation of plants in outdoor was the most interesting activity and soil seed bank experiment was the most useful activity to the students. The educational period from late March to early November was too long to keep interest for participants. In the final program, we suggested 3 months and 2 weeks education period (from the 4th week of March to the first week of July) and the 4th grade students as a target. The program consisted of 7 activities, which are "Beginning the soil seed banks observation", "Comparing plant community in each soil seed bank", "My friends, sprout", "How do you come here?", "Finding the hided plants in my school garden", "Why did the soil seed banks change?", and "Inquiring about relationship between plants and their environments". These activities include the process of student's participation of sampling and setting soil seed banks around their school, and observing and identifying the seedlings. Through these activities, students can understand the concept of soil seed banks, develop their ecological knowledge, eco-centric attitude, and ecological sensibility and inquire about the relationship between vegetation from soil seed banks and their environments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Environmental Edudation Conference
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• 2001.07a
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• pp.43-44
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• 2001

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.36-49
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether elementary school parents' environmental literacy varied according to independent variables, to verify specific variables that affected their environmental literacy, and to analyze the correlation between elementary school students' and their parents' environmental literacy. Twelve elementary schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do were chosen for purposive sampling. 342 questionnaires were used for analysis among the 350 questionnaires collected during the study, and their environmental literacy was measured through 55 questions consisted of 12 items for knowledge category, 22 for attitude category, 5 for behavior category, and 3 for skills category with 16 demographic variables. Statistical analysis was conducted on each of the variables that make up environmental literacy through mean t-test, F-distribution, Scheffe test, and Pearson correlation. The results of this study were as follows. (1) there is the difference according to age and career in parent's actual environmental literacy, but there is no difference in geneder, birthplace, residential type, religion and income. The parents in forties scored significantly higher than parents in thirties in subdomains of environmental skill and environmental interest in environmental literacy. And the parents with bachelor's degree scored significantly higher than parents with at least a high school diploma in subdomains of ecological knowledge, knowledge on environmental problems & issue, environmental skill and environmental behavior. (2) the most influential media on parents' environmental literacy is TV, then newspaper, internet and book follow. (3) the correlation between environmental crisis and environmental interest is the highest, but the mainly negative correlation is analysed between knowledge subdomains and other subdomains. (4) there is the correlation between elementary school students' and their parents' environmental literacy.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.69-81
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• 2014

This study was to find out the effects of out-of-class environmental experience learning on elementary students' environmental literacy. For this study, we developed and applied environmental education program utilizing out-of-class facilities and ecological park for the 5th-grade students. The subjects of this study were the 5th grade students of an elementary school located in Si-hung city. The study was carried out for two groups, an experiment group of 29 students and control group of 29 students. The education program using out-of-class environmental experience learning was provided to the experiment group while lecture-oriented education program was provided to the control group. The questionnaire used in this study to assess the environmental literacy of the study objects consists of 41 questions under 4 domains (knowledge, emotion, skill, behavior). After observing and analyzing the effects of out-of-class environmental experience learning on students' environmental literacy, we found that the program using the out-of-class environmental experience learning posed greater impacts than lecture-oriented program. By domains, environmental literacy in 3 domains illustrated positive improvement. In particular, skill domain illustrated much more improvement in environmental literacy. But, domain of behavior didn't illustrated improvement in environmental literacy. The result of this study signified that the out-of-class environmental experience learning has positive and effective impact on the environmental literacy. And out-of-class environmental experience learning is more suitable to improve the skill domain of the environmental literacy than lecture-oriented learning. But, it is couldn't improve the domain of behavior. Therefore, in order to improve behavior domain, the program must apply with effective evaluation and home training.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.13-25
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• 2008

This study examined the educational effects of journal writing on environmental literacy of elementary students. Thirty-one 3rd grade students were involved in the journal writing which is considered as one of the most frequently performed writing activities in elementary students. Topics for the journal writing were chosen from a textbook on the environment. Before and after the journal writing, an instrument was used to measure the environmental literacy of the students. The environmental literacy instrument was originally developed by Jin (2004) then were modified by Kim (2005) for elementary students. The results of this study are as follows. The environmental literacy of the students, on average, was improved from 140.84 (74.5%) to 161.84 (85.6%) after the journal writing and the difference was statistically significant(t=7.46, p<.001). The environmental literacy scores were significantly improved in every variable after the journal writing: ecological knowledge(t=3.60, p<.01), environmental sensitivity(t=2.54, p<.05), knowledge of environmental issues(t=3.11, p<.01), environmental attitude(t=5.92, p<.001), environmental concern(t=5.27, p<.001), sense of environmental crisis(t=2.97, p<.01), environmental issue investigation and action strategy knowledge (t=2.34, p<.05), environmental skill(t=4.86, p<.001), locus of control(t=5.63, p<.001), and responsible environmental behavior(t=4.64, p<.001). This study also shows that improvement of the students was statistically significant in each of the four levels of goals in environmental education: EE goal level I (t=4.22, p<.001), level II (t=7.53, p<.001), level III(t=5.01, p<.001), and level IV(t=5.46, p<.001). The results imply that the journal writing on the environment is effective in cultivating elementary students' environmental literacy and in achieving goals in environmental education.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.83-101
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• 1998

‘Environmental Literacy’ is defined as ‘one's individual status to be accomplished or to be acquired by environmental education’ and it has the same meaning as ‘the Goals of EE’. The purposes of this study was to identify the components of environmental literacy and analyse the related studies. Much of the work in EE has followed the path outlined by the Belgrade Charter, the Tbilisi Declaration, and later in Agenda 21. Over the years, scholars such as Hungerford et al., Iozzi et al., Roth, the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education, and the Environmental Education Literacy Consortium have examined and proposed a framework of ‘Environmental Literacy’. Recently, the influential framework developed by the NAAEE(the North American Association for Environmental Education) National Project for Excellence in EE included seven categories: affect, ecological knowledge, socio-political knowledge, knowledge of environmental issues, skills, additional determinants of environmentally responsible behavior, and environmentally responsible behaviors. According to the analysed results, 37.7% of the American studies and 32.5% of Korean ones measured aspects of the attitude. Especially, the measure of this variable in America, however, led to the most inconclusive and least positive outcomes. The studies included related to cognitive skills were very few but 100% reported positive impacts of instructions in two countries. In America, using a television documentary, a journal and the field trip were very useful and effective. But using a computer simulation/game was less effective and the supplemental instruction did't led to the positive effect. In Korea, instruction, the supplemental instruction and EE program led to positive outcomes generally. The lack of validity and reliability of the instruments was pointed out as a common problem and the development of valid and reliable instrument for nation-wide assessment is urgently needed.