Construction of geography related concepts in the social studies teaching program in the mind

Social studies is a course taught in primary and secondary schools that includes social science disciplines and civics in order to help the individual's social existence. One of the important disciplines included in the social studies course is geography. Geography is also important in terms of the social science disciplines that the social studies course includes, as it is at the forefront of the environment in which people live and all the activities they perform in this environment. Because the knowledge and ideas produced by other social sciences take place in their own unique geographical locations. In this context, disciplines such as history, sociology and economics cannot be isolated from geographical space. In short, there can be no social sciences without geography. Just as there would be no Social Sciences without Geography, there would be no Social Studies. Social studies course is a rich course in terms of concept because it contains many social sciences. For this reason, concept teaching in social studies course is very important. In this context, concept teaching is very important in the process of teaching the subjects of the geography discipline, which is one of the important disciplines that make up the social studies course. In this context, the research was carried out in order to reveal the perceptions of the concepts of the geography discipline in the social studies curriculum in the minds of the students. The study group of the research consists of 200 8th grade students studying in 2 official secondary schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the provinces of Sakarya and Konya in the 2021-2022 academic year. In the study, data were collected through metaphor from qualitative research designs and word association test was used as a data collection tool. Through the word association test, geography and 19 geographical concepts (disaster, human environment, vegetation, region, geographical location, environment, natural resource, clothing, migration, weather, weather event, climate, continent, global problem, legend, population, scale, urbanization, place) were examined. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. In order to determine the students' perceptions of each concept, tables were created, breakpoints were determined, and students' associations with the concepts were grouped according to the determined breakpoints. As a result of the research, students; It has been concluded that the perceptions of geographical concepts differ from each other, the perception levels of some geographical concepts are high and some of the concepts are low, and that students have some misconceptions.