In Republic of Slovenia, the shift towards the constructivistical design of learning and teaching in the early school period, in the primary natural science, was caused by Tempus project titled “The development of primary natural science”, in the beginning of the nineties in the past century (Piciga and Japelj, 1993). With the curricular remodelling of the primary school, before mentioned theory became a foundation, on which the environmental studies subject was drafted, a subject that integrates contents of both social and natural science and is taught in the first triennium of the nine year primary school system.  The basic general goals of the subject are comprehension of the environment and development of a cognitive field, what in narrower sense means cognition of facts, forming ideas, and in broader sense development of abilities (skills) and procedures: comparison, sorting, management, measuring, writing down data, foretelling and deducing, experimenting and reporting. Beside this, pupils should develop a relation towards facts, openness for the acceptance of other people’s ideas and the sensitivity for the happening in natural and social environment (Krnel, et al., 2003). Hence it follows that the main meaning of the lessons is in organisation of circumstances for active learning and in stimulating pupils to discover and build their own knowledge (Šteh, 2004). Constructivists believe that you cannot »give« knowledge in a complete form, as well as you cannot »accept« it from someone, but everybody can build it up with their own mental activity. Very important in this process are already existing, although wrong and incomplete comprehensions, that we have of the world and phenomena. Constructivists therefore substantiate that we build (construct) knowledge on our own with our own activity in the process of making experiences meaningful (Marentič Požarnik, 2003). What role do textbook sets (textbook, workbook, teacher handbook) have in this? With the empirical research we wanted to establish how teachers evaluate the representation of individual constructivistic elements in the selected textbook set for the environmental studies subject. We were interested in:

-          Which textbook set do teachers use at the environmental studies project?

-          How do the teachers assess the possibility of the pupils for an independent learning with the use of the selected textbook set?

-          How do particular textbook sets offer possibilities for the use of more active learning forms of work?

-          How do particular textbook sets offer possibilities for the use of more active learning methods?

-          What do teachers think of the representation of selected pupils' activities in the textbook set?

-          How the teachers assess their own qualification for the constructivistic way of teaching?

Dražumerič, N. (2004). Konstruktivizem v praksi. V B. Marentič Požarnik (Ur.), Konstruktivizem v šoli in izobraževanje učiteljev (str. 363-370). Ljubljana: Center za pedagoško izobraževanje Filozofske fakultete in Slovensko društvo pedagogov. Hus, V. (2004). Aktivnosti učencev pri pouku spoznavanja okolja in spoznavanje narave in družbe v prvem razredu osnovne šole. Pedagoška obzorja, 19 (1), 17–27. Knoll, W.L., Tilemma. (1995). Presenting Relevant Knowlege to Student Teachers. EARLI, Nijmegen. Labinowicz, E. (1989). Izvirni Piaget. Ljubljana: DZS Marentič Požarnik, B. (2003). Psihologija učenja in pouka. Ljubljana: DZS. Piciga, D. in Japelj, B.(1993). Rezultati mednarodnih primerjalnih študij naravoslovja za osnovno šolo: Slovenski učenci v IAEP študiji. Educa, str. 136-174. Rutar Ilc, Z. (2004). Učno-ciljni pristop: ovira ali spodbuda za konstruktivistični način poučevanja. V B. Marentič Požarnik (Ur.), Konstruktivizem v šoli in izobraževanje učiteljev (str. 194¬–206). Ljubljana: Center za pedagoško izobraževanje Filozofske fakultete in Slovensko društvo pedagogov. Šteh, B. (2004). Koncept aktivnega in konstruktivnega učenja. V B. Marentič Požarnik (Ur.), Konstruktivizem v šoli in izobraževanje učiteljev (str. 149–163). Ljubljana: Center za pedagoško izobraževanje Filozofske fakultete in Slovensko društvo pedagogov Vrbek, A. (2008). Konsrtuktivizem v učbeniških kompletih za predmet spoznavanje okolja v 3.razredu osnovne šole skozi oči učiteljev. Diplomsko delo