Abstract:

Sustainability can be defined as the environment’s being protected in its most natural state in human-environment interaction, and the humans’ regulating their negative effects on the environment in order to recover the environment. The social studies course, which has an important role in pointing out the environmental issues and raising awareness about the environment, aims to help students acquire knowledge, attitudes and participation towards the environment. One of the important materials in the achieving of these goals of the social studies course is the textbooks. With this study, it was aimed to examine the course books, which are one of the basic educational materials in the social studies course, in terms of sustainability awareness. The data source of the research consists of 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade social studies course books published to be taught in the 2020-2021 academic year. In this qualitative research document analysis was used. Findings showed that sustainability awareness is emphasized in the in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade social studies however, it can be stated that this content is limited in the context of raising awareness of sustainability. Additionally, it was concluded that the studies aiming to raise awareness of sustainability in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grade social studies course books were diversified as open-ended questions, reading passages, project studies, multiple choice questions, and research questions. Based on the results obtained from the research, it has been suggested to increase the number of units, topics and studies to raise awareness of sustainability in social studies course books and to examine social studies course books by comparing them with the textbooks of other courses.

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