Analysis of Environmental Literacy in Elementary Experimental Science Books According to General Environmental Policies

Human's continuous encroachment on the environment and indiscriminate harvesting and improper use of natural resources have caused irreparable damage to the environment. Throughout their lives, humans have disturbed the balance and harmony of the environment with their interference and negative effects on the regular rules of nature, and it has progressed to the point where the human society is faced with a multitude of environmental problems. Therefore, the recognition of adverse environmental behaviors, their management and control, is the foundation of education that should be considered by curriculum planners through content and textbooks from the very beginning of formal education. One of the effective ways in this matter is teaching environmental concepts in elementary school. Environmental education through conceptualization in textbooks can be a vital tool to deal with environmental problems. Therefore, the purpose of the research; The analysis of environmental literacy concepts in elementary school science books is based on the national curriculum.

The research method is descriptive and content analysis type. The statistical population included the experimental science books of elementary school, which due to the nature of the subject, sampling was not done and all the statistical population was investigated. The data collection tool was the content analysis list made by the researcher, which was made with the judgment of experts. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

The results of the research showed that in the experimental science books of elementary school; Based on the components of environmental literacy (water consumption management, electricity consumption management, gas consumption management, waste management, forest conservation, animal conservation); The most attention in the first and third grades; water consumption management (25.79 and 35.19 percent), second grade; waste management (34.69 percent), fourth, fifth and sixth grades; forest preservation (22.64, 22.15 and 31.91 percent). Also, attention to environmental elements in the entire primary period (with frequency of 987), the most attention is related to the fifth-grade experimental science book with 21.47 percent and the least attention is related to the sixth grade with 14.28 percent. On the other hand, based on prioritization; The most attention of experimental science textbooks in elementary school was on water consumption management (with 217 frequency) and the least attention was on gas consumption management (with 115 frequency).

Environmental concepts do not have a favorable position in experimental science books of elementary school. Considering the environmental problems in the country, it was suggested to review the content of experimental science textbooks to pay more attention to environmental components and to include skill-oriented environmental content in the first to third grades and research-oriented content in the fourth to sixth grades, Vertical and horizontal organization in the design of environmental content of experimental science textbooks and balanced distribution of content in the first to sixth grade should be observed, More content on the topic of waste should be included in the content of elementary school textbooks, especially the topic of waste management in the fifth and sixth grade, More content should be devoted to the issue of energy and centrality of gas consumption in the third and fourth grade books, Content related to forest and animal conservation should be included in all the elementary grades.