Awareness of the Fifth Grade Students about the Natural Environment Preservation

초등학교 5학년 학생들의 자연 환경 보존에 대한 인식

This paper is intended to investigate the awareness of the elementary school students about the natural environment preservation. For this purpose, 21 elementary school students from the 5th grade of elementary school located in Gwangju city were selected. Especially, we focused on the students' conceptions related to 1) the environments, 2) the safe national land development activity to face several natural disasters and 3) the environmental preservation with the national land development. To evaluate the change of students' conceptions for the national land development, the students were also participated in establishing the plan of the national land development using the model of the natural environment after learning in detail about the natural environments. The results of this study showed that most of the students recognized the concept of the environments as a simple knowledge itself and pollution rather than the protection of environment. In the course of the safe national land development activity to face several natural disasters, the students expressed standardized answer indicating the knowledge based thinking of the environments. According to the results of the environmental preservation with the national land development and the hypothetical project of the national land development, the students did not have enough knowledge for the natural environment preservation although they had understanding of natural disasters and environmental preservation. Therefore, it is necessary to stress affirmative concept for the environment related to the preservation of natural environment. Also we need to develop the syllabus, which is related to the environmental studies, in the elementary educational program leading students to participate in the environmental preservation with the national land development reasonably and practically.