A Study on the Evaluation of Environmental Education Programs in Primary and Secondary School

초.중등 환경교육 프로그램 평가 연구

The purpose of this study was to evaluate Korean and foreign environmental education programs: 3 Korean programs including 'Environmental Education Program' for primary school level, 'Environment' for middle school level, 'Ecology and Environment' for high school level and 2 foreign programs including 'TLSF(Teaching and Loaming for a Sustainable Future) Program and IEEIA(Investigating and Evaluating Environmental Issues and Actions) Program using IAEEC (The Inventory for Assessing Environmental Education Curricula) by Kim (2003). The IAEEC include four goal levels of the foundations level, the conceptual awareness level, the investigation level, environmental action skills level and an optical level: teaching methods and practice. The IAEEC use a 5-point Likert scale to identify the extent to which an environmental education curriculum or a program reflects the goals of environmental education. It was found that our school environmental education programs need to be more involved, especially in the areas of social foundations (political & legal); personal beliefs and values in environmental issue and the critical analysis of the issue by identifying important players' positions, beliefs, and values; and the environmental action to solve the issue and evaluate the consequences and effectiveness of the action plan. This study can provide a meaningful direction for program development in environmental education and especially provide school-teachers with reliable sources in analyzing environmental education programs for their school classes.