Middle School Environmental Education of the 7th National Curriculum and Application to Teen-agers Practice of Environmental Education

제7차 중학교 ‘환경’ 교육과정과 청소년 환경교육

The Quality of human living depends on the environmental quality of the region sustaining the life. The environmental deterioration of the modern society is due to mechanical environmentalism. For the better quality of the life, The changes of recognition and attitude on the environments are required. These changes of mind are also important in environmental education for teenagers. The 7th national curriculum, officially anounced December 1998, focuses on the change of attitude to environments and practical behavior in real life for “Environments”, the environmental education curriculum in middle school. Basic elements of the curriculum are cultivation of the pro-environmental thinking, multi-levelling of teaching materials and methods, and encouraging of student participating activity. Actually, the curriculum construction is composed of stepped-levelling of teaching and learning, reasonable contents volume, encouraging of student practice, and suggesting of evaluation standards of textbook writing. Three main subjects of environmental education for middle school consist of (1) man and environment, (2) recognition of environmental problem, and (3) protection activity for environment. Methodology of environmental education can include multi-disciplinary approaches, variable teaching methods, and continuing evaluation of student practice and participation attitude. Environmental education for teenagers relating to the 7th national curriculum focuses on recognition of the environmental problems and practice activity in daily life. The recognition includes considering relationship of human life to environment, solving environmental problems in regional context, and development of comprehensive understanding concept of the environments. For the practice education, variable teaching methods, such as field survey and application of multi-media, are needed.