709 Introduction Science is deined as “trying to discover the nature while searching, forming an organized information group that has an efect and applicabil- ity on society” (Ministry of National Education (MEB) 2012f ). The student, trying to give meaning to the nature, meets the concepts (Schoenfeld, 1992). The concept is the common name of numerous events, objects, ideas that have similar properties or phenomena, that have widespread special attitude (Çepni, 2011). Concepts, especially for science teaching, have a great importance. And learning without conceptual understanding will not be more than memorization (Singler and Saam, 2006; Snowman and Biehler, 2003). Notwithstanding, the concepts learned out of school may be far from scientiic facts, this case may be quite dangerous for sci- ence teaching (Ausubel, Novak and Hanesian, 1978; Driver, 1989). In some cases the opinions of the authors and/or teachers may, vaguely, afect students’ concept learning and may cause misconception (Barras, 1984; Gilbert, Osborne and Fensham, 1982; Mintzes, 1984, 1989; Osborne, Bell and Gilbert, 1983; Pines and West, 1986). Related to this, Yip (1998) states, that the reasons that may be the source of misconception, due to because of students’ wrong opinions caused by their daily experience, language usage style of the students, the misconception that the students learn at learning environment, course books and teachers. Misconception frequently appears the factor that blocks semantic learning, since it blocks restruc- turing that new learned knowledge and disjoins the meaning among the conceptions (Bahar, 2003). Misconceptions are seen very often in science ields that are wide and expansive. Some of them are not related to students’ personal experience or learning, (Barrass, 1984; Cho, Kahle and Nordland, 1985; Sanders, 1993; Storey, 1989, 1990; Veiga, Costa Pereira and Maskill, 1989) and some consist of the misconceptions that the students get in their daily life experience ConCePts oF VeGetABLe AnD FRUIt In PResCHooL AnD eLementARY eDUCAtIon Hüseyin Eş Sinop University, Turkey Hüseyin Eş Abstract. The purpose of this study was to investigate the way the concepts of fruit and vegetable are presented in teaching materials, used in pre-school education and in the textbooks of life sciences and science and technology courses in elementary education, in addition to the students and teachers’ knowledge and opinions related to these concepts. Qualitative research techniques were used in this study. The sample of the study comprises the students receiving education in pre-school and elementary education and the teachers serving at these levels. 258 students and 83 teachers took part in this study. A survey, which was developed by the researcher, including two forms, was administered. Teaching materials in pre-school education and course books in elementary education were also used as data sources. When the research indings are considered, it stands out that these concepts have diferent deinitions in diferent ields and thus, they have no common deinitions. This situation seems to have been relected in the teach- ing materials used both in pre-school and elementary education. Also, it is seen that there are important diferences between teachers’ opinions about these concepts. Key words: concept learning, concepts of fruit and vegetable, science education, teaching materials.