Environmental education and its position in the curriculum of secondary school education system

The present research was conducted with the aim of studying the current condition of textbooks based on the amount of attention paid to components of Environmental literacy including knowledge, skill and environmental attitude and within the framework of Marsinowski and Rehring’s environmental education. Research method was content analysis using Shannon's entropy technique and page analysis unit (text, questions, exercises, illustrations) was a total of 387 pages of the newly compiled high school biology, chemistry and geography textbooks. The statistical population comprised of all the high school biology, chemistry and geography textbooks in 2013- 2014 academic year out of which three second grade textbooks were selected as the sample. Data collection tool was content analysis checklist, validity of which has been confirmed by environmental experts and curriculum designers. Results of data analysis indicated that out of 513 counted environmental components, 305 units have been allocated to environmental knowledge, 88 units to environmental skill and 119 units to environmental attitude. More attention has been paid to environmental knowledge rather than environmental attitude or environmental skill and textbooks do not address environmental components equally. Geography textbook has sufficiently addressed environmental issues but environmental concepts have been significantly neglected in chemistry and biology textbooks. Based on the findings of this research, revising the curriculum content of high school chemistry and biology curricula with regard to attention to components and indexes of Environmental literacy seems to be necessary.