Abstract
This article addresses the problem of forming environmental values among students in the process of teaching biology as an essential condition for the development of environmental culture and responsible attitudes toward nature. The purpose of the study is to provide a theoretical justification for the system of environmental values of school students, to develop a scientific and methodological model for their formation, and to experimentally verify the effectiveness of this model in the educational process. The research methodology included analysis of philosophical, psychological, pedagogical, and methodological literature, questionnaires, observation, pedagogical experiment, and comparative analysis. The article reveals the conceptual differences and interconnections between the notions of “environmental value,” “environmental culture,” “environmental education,” and “environmental upbringing,” and demonstrates their implementation within the content of the school biology curriculum. The proposed model for the formation of environmental values consists of target-oriented, motivational, content-related, design and organizational, activity-based, and evaluative-resultative components. The results of the ascertaining experiment showed that although students demonstrate a sufficient level of environmental knowledge, their understanding and conscious acceptance of environmental values remain at a low level.The formative experiment, which employed problem-based tasks, role-playing activities, case studies, and project-based learning, contributed to a significant improvement in students’ environmental values. The findings confirm the effectiveness of the proposed methodology and indicate the possibility of its application in the practice of teaching biology in general secondary schools. Keywords: value, system of ecological values, model, ecological value, ecological culture, ecological education, ecological education.