Learner's environmental cognition showed that understanding of environment, belief, values and attitude. Therefore, to confirm that environmental education is going in the right direction, cognition of learners needs to be continually re-evaluated.
I...
Learner's environmental cognition showed that understanding of environment, belief, values and attitude. Therefore, to confirm that environmental education is going in the right direction, cognition of learners needs to be continually re-evaluated.
In this study researcher interprets the message which learners and teachers communicate through photographs.
The subjects of the study are 256 students in 4th, 5th and 6th grades who differ in school and home environments. There are also 60 teachers living in Seoul.
Research tools were student’s tool and teacher’s tool. Three types of student tools were used. These included a thirteen question questionnaire about the actual educational environment, five written words about the environment and the several sentences that explained the knowing, learning and understanding about environment through photographs. Also, three types of teacher tools were used. These included a eleven question questionnaire about the environmental education, five written words about the environment and the several sentences that explained the environmental education contents through photographs.
The conclusion of this study is as follows.
First, according to the result of students environmental cognition through photographs, environmental education contents were evenly distributed except ‘ESSD’ and ‘Population’. Environmental education objects were not evenly distributed, the ‘Information & Knowledge’ category accounts for the highest at 58% and ‘Value & Attitude’ at 29%. And the results of five written words associated with environment, in the individual cases, the rates of students who had positive expression and negative expression are higher than the rates of students who had positive expression or negative expression.
Second, according to the result of teachers environmental cognition through photographs, ‘Environmental Pollution’ and ‘Environmental Conservation and Countermeasure’ were the most frequently covered categories, accounting for 21.4% and 15.2%. The result of environmental education objects were ‘Information & Knowledge’ at 68.1% and ‘Value & Attitude’ at 26.7%. And the results of five written words associated with environment, the rates of negative expression 62%, and positive expression 37%. In the individual cases, the rates of teachers who had positive expression or negative expression are higher than the rates of teachers who had positive expression and negative expression. These results were different from the students’ results.
Third, the result of comparing the students, each school had statistical differences but each grade remained statistically unchanged. Also, according to the result of comparing students and teachers, ‘Environmental Pollution’ and ‘Environmental Conservation and Countermeasure’ were the main categories. Students have the greater parts of these two categories, but teachers explained all over the environmental education contents.