The factors which defined what Geological elements and how are being taught in Greek Elementary Schools are not only included in the National Curriculum Programs and in the Textbooks. The very few teaching hours of the subjects in which are included, the poor school-libraries and the absence of specialized training of the Primary schools teaching staff have an important role also. An additional role has the absence of modern thought for the specific problems of the Geological subject matter and the needs of educational process. This study deals with the evaluation and presentation of the Geological subject matter of the textbooks in Primary Education, as it is referred in Geography of the last two years in school. Also, the potentials and perspectives of enriching the Geological matter through the Textbooks "Study of the Environment", which are taught during the first four years of Primary schools are presented. Indicative examples on development and implementation of geological knowledge in practice are suggested, according the principles of Environmental Education, splendidly covering as well, the teaching and learning targets of this subject.

This paper is part of a wider study and reflects an attempt to explore the cognitive representations that Greek pupils in the 5th grade of elementary school have, as they emerge from the freehand drawing of rivers. An attempt was made to explore the extent to which the cognitive representation skills of school pupils are associated with real images of space and the extent to which intervention by the teacher who presents the structure of a river emphasizing on how it is formed can contribute to an improvement in the drawings made. Two groups of pupils ( = 125, = 113) took part in this study. They were taught one of two parallel lesson plans, to create representations relating to the concept of river. This was followed by an analysis of the drawings and the pre-and postteaching interviews ( = 60/group). The results indicate that pupils perceive the differences between reality and how it is conveyed in images, and they reproduce stereotypical models of rivers presented in schoolbooks without using complex structures to represent them. In addition, it was clear how encouraging use of children's mental maps can be not only in revising existing teaching theories but also in building new ones.