Abstract:

Running water, one of the basic topics for both primary and secondary schools, includes many sub-concepts. River, tributary and stream are the primary sub-concepts. This research is performed with the aim of confirming the meanings of the concepts in literature and determining difficulties with teaching of them. A review of the literature showed that there is no consistency in the meaning of these concepts. It was suggested that this inconsistency might arise that distinctive features of these concepts are not prominent. The study stated that both inconsistencies in their meanings and prominent indistinctive features of them might cause misconceptions and misuse of the concepts. Taking these results into consideration, various suggestions have been directed to geography teachers and researchers for using and teaching these concepts.

Keywords: