Investigation of environmental education themed activities in social studies textbooks in the context of environmental literacy skills and teachers' views on the activities

Environmental problems affect the lives of all living things. In order to prevent these problems and to increase the sensitivity of individuals to environmental problems, the effectiveness of environmental education given in this sense is important. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the environmental education themed activities in social studies textbooks in the light of environmental literacy skills and to find out teachers' opinions about these activities. Document analysis and interview method were used in this research. Content analysis was used to analyse the documents. As a result of the examination of the social studies curriculum and textbooks, the activities in the textbooks were evaluated by taking the opinions of social studies teachers. The 17 social studies teachers who were interviewed are working in Mut district of Mersin. The interviews were conducted with an interview form consisting of 7 questions and the data obtained were analysed descriptively among qualitative data analysis methods. The data obtained in this regard were summarised and interpreted according to the identified themes. In the findings of the study, it was observed that the activities in the textbook were not sufficient to provide students with environmental literacy skills. In the interviews, teachers stated that the environmental literacy skill is related to the course in terms of being included in the outcomes, but the activities in the textbook are insufficient. It was suggested to increase the learning outcomes related to the environmental literacy skill in the social studies curriculum and to include activities that students can actively participate in while developing the activities in the textbooks.