Abstract

Environment education at schools can act as an asset to help make students committed, responsible and active adults and citizens regarding environmental issues. As a result of their behaviours originating from acquired knowledge, attitudes and skills in this regard, the damage to environment is prevented and it is, accordingly, protected. The education can be transferred to the future generations as a valuable heritage. The current study aimed to study the degree of attention paid to environment education in natural sciences textbooks in terms of text, illustration and activities. The data collection procedure in this applied research was a descriptive survey. Considering the nature and aims of the study, the researcher employed content analysis by using checklist evaluation. The subjects and concepts of environment were represented in 12 main questionnaire items and 136 minor items. These main items included: water, population, soil, climate change, environment variety, human-made pollutants, attempt for earth rebirth, climate stability, effective use of earth resources, poverty eradication, non-civil use of land and moral teachings of environment protection. The results show that the most attention to the items of environment education was paid to in the first grade textbook of sciences .In addition, the next highest degrees of attention to the education were found in the textbooks of grades 9, 7 and 8, respectively. The significance of some items was observed but some items were totally or partially overlooked, signifying the point that more attention to these items can result in the improvement of students environment behaviours.