The place and importance of education in primary programmes for environment in turkey

In the study, it has been aimed to identify the place and importance of environmental education in the programme by identifying what kinds of studies there have been to form the environment consciousness in primary education programme course books which have been renewed in 2005-2006 educational year. For this purpose, the acquisitions and activities for educating the environment have been identified in the course books of Social Science, Science and Technology, Religious Science and Visual Arts. The texts related to the environment in Turkish course books and the researches about these texts have been analyzed.Acquisitions which have been aimed to be reached for the environment have been classified according to the level and the subjects. For this purpose, by identifying the acquisitions and activities in Social Science, Science and Technology course books aiming to educate the environment, the changes according to the level of the classes have been set. Religious Science and Visual Arts course books in which there are acquisitions aiming to form the environmental consciousness have been analyzed. In Turkish lessons in which there are different kinds of environmental reading texts, the studies have been identified in order to form the environmental consciousness.The study is a qualitative one and the document analysis approach has been used in it. According to the diagnosis got from the study, there are enough acquisitions and activities in the Social Science, Science and Technology lessons; moreover it has been realized that there are different acquisitions in Visual Arts, Religious Science and there are poems and texts related to the subject in Turkish lessons. It has been seen that acquisitions and activities have developing features according to the level of the class and they are far from the prolixity as there are not much repetitions. Different suggestions have been made such as eliminating the breakdowns.Key Words: Education for the Environment, Environmental Consciousness, PrimaryEducation Course Books