Evaluating teaching of agriculture in elemantary social studies courses, developing relevant maps and graphics

The most significant purpose of my thesis study titled as "Evaluating teaching of Agriculture in Elemantary Social Studies Courses, Developing Relevant Maps and Graphics" is to determine agricultural products mentioned in the Elemantary Social Studies Course Books, to draw up-to-date maps and graphics of these agricultural products basing on latest data, and to use them in education. Other purposes of this study are as follows; to reveal competencies and incompetence of the teaching of agricultural products of the Social Studies Course, to evaluate the level of the teaching of the agricultural products and help pupils to learn agricultural issues more easily. Elemantary Social Studies Course Books of the Ministry of National Education ( Grade 4, 5, 6, 7 ) were examined. During this examination, ranching was excluded even if it is a branch of agriculture; only agricultural products were taken into consideration since in many sections of the course books agriculture was dealt separately from ranching. Totally 52 agricultural products were determined to be mentioned in agricultural issues and graphics and maps showing the distribution of these products in terms of provinces were drawn. Graphics did not coverall provinces; however, the ten provinces with the highest production was displayed. Maps were drawn according to the production amount of agricultural products with provinces being painted in different colours. In maps, those places where there is no production were left empty that means they were painted in white and the provinces with the highest rate of production were painted in blue. Certain production amount space ( 6 spaces ) according to the production amount of each agricultural products were determined and each production amount space was painted in different colours as mentioned below; 1- Provinces where there is no production was left empty and painted in white. 2- Provinces where there is a very small amount of production were painted in light yellow thus were displayed in light yellow.VI 3- Provinces with normal amount of production which we can say that there is normal production were painted in dark yellow. 4- Provinces with production higher than normal production were painted in orange; thus, were displayed in orange. 5- Provinces with more production were displayed in brown. 6. Provinces with the highest amount of production were displayed in blue colour. In thesis maps and graphics were not considered separately: on the contary, they were considered as a whole. Hence, pursuant to the map displaying the distribution of any agricultural product preceded the graphic of the same agricultural product in the next page and just below came the comments on the mentioned agricultural product. This method was applied for all agricultural products so as to avoid confusion. Another importent feature of the maps and graphics is that statistical information is up-to-date, that means latest data. Data for the production amount were obtained from the State Institute of Statistics. Elemantary Social Studies Course Books were examined in terms of accuracy, plainness, language, adequacy of the complementary materials and simplicity and some conclusions were arrived. A questionnaire was administered to the Instructors of Social Studies working Ankara Province centre, districs, sub - districts, towns and villages. In the first part of the "Teacher's Questionnaire Form" which consisted of three parts, personal questions were directed to teachers. In the second part, questions pertaining to "Teaching Methods and Material Utilisation" were asked and the last part was devoted to the proposals of our colleagues. Totally 36 teachers were administered a questionnaire and data were sorted out in computer by using the SPSS package programme.