Greek primary school teachers' understanding of current environmental issues: An exploration of their environmental knowledge and images of nature

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, the Greek primary school teachers' understanding of three current environmental issues (acid rain, the ozone layer depletion, and the greenhouse effect) as well as the emerging images of nature were examined. The study revealed that teachers held several environmental knowledge gaps and misconceptions about the three phenomena. Using the media as major environmental information sources, in which environmental issues are constructed as environmental risks, teachers are being environmentally educated in lay and not in scientific terms. Moreover, the image of nature emerging from their ideas about the three environmental issues is that of the romantic archetype, which prevails in postindustrial societies. Such a view, though, gives a conceptualization of nature as balance, under which the greenhouse effect and acid rain are seen as exclusively human‐induced “disturbances.” © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 91:244–259, 2007