Teacher views on place based education approach in the education of geography

The aim of this study is to build a theoretical background for place based education approach, which hasn?t been studied within the national curricula before, to explicate Geography curriculum within the limits of place based education approach and to evaluate teachers? views about the aforementioned method. Therefore this study is the first of its kind. The research population of descriptive inquiry model, the method of collecting data in this study, consists of the high school geography teachers in central provinces of Ankara. The sampling group is the 258 geography teachers working at the same schools in 2010-2011 schooling year.The collected data are evaluated through ?The Scale for Teachers? Opinions on Place Based Education Approach in the Teaching of Geography,? developed by the researcher. The data were analysed through SPSS statistical package, in terms of percentage, frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, t-test for comparisons, and one-way variant (ANOVA). To test the differences between group averages, a significance level of 0.05 was used as basis.As a result of the research, it was found out that Geography curriculum has been developed in accordance with place based education approach. Considering the application of the programme, it were discovered that geography teachers turn to in-class activities while signifying the subject of the class with local geographical conditions while they rarely make use of outdoor activities. Teachers have put forward financial problems, lack of time, and inadequate social and family support as the major reasons behind the fact that they cannot always apply such activities. They have also indicated that place based education approach is a highly effective method in teaching students about the importance of local resources, both natural and cultural, the problems taking place in their environment, and the relationship between man and nature.Keywords: Place, Place Based Education, Geography Education, Geography Curriculum, Geography Teachers