"에너지.환경 탐구대회" 초등팀 탐구 활동 소개 및 보고서에 진술된 환경 가치 분석

An Analysis of Environmental Values Written in Energy.Environment Inquiry Activity Contest Reports of Elementary School Teams

The purpose of this study is to analyze the content of environmental inquiry activities and values of elementary school students written in their reports of the Energy Environment Inquiry Activity Contest which is a unit contest of the Youth Science Festival held annually in Korea and get some ideas for the valuable way of Korean environmental education. 10 teams' reports were gathered and the locality, class study area, inquiry theme, inquiry method and values were analyzed and introduced as case studies to get some insights to teach elementary school students environmental values through inquiry activities of science subject approach. Each teams set various inquiry themes in the content domain of energy resources and earth environment conservation focusing on each team's geographical characteristics and occurring environmental problems in their local areas. There were 16 sentences representing technocentrism and 12 sentences representing ecocentrism. 5 of 10 teams showed both of technocentrism and ecocentrism in their reports. But their was only scientific knowledge without any environmental values in one team's report. Inquiry activity is a good teaching-learning method to develop environmental literacy. There should be environmental values involved as far as it is the environmental inquiry activities using environmental subject matter. The result of this study proposes that environmental educators should actively intervene for inquirers to set a stage in the whole process to search for an alternative to solve environmental problems involved in their project activities. The reason is because the environmental education in the elementary school is established to operate by the infusion way into various subjects already existed in the Korean curriculum.