The peculiarities of the ecological education in the conditions of a specialized secondary educational institution of the economic specialty are under research in this work. The statement assumed as the hypothesis of the research is that it’s possible to form ecological culture in the education of economists if it is viewed as a necessary and most important function of a specialist, if the diagnostics of the development of ecological culture is implemented in accordance with the notions of its structure, criteria and levels of its development reflecting the integral model of the ecologically-oriented lifestyle of a human being, the specially created system of continuous ecological education will serve as the source of formation of ecological culture, the pedagogical tools and methods of formation of ecological culture will be based on ecologically oriented activity of students during which they receive many-sided knowledge about the environment.
Ecological culture of a student represents a whole of motives and understanding of values and morals, scientific notions and experience of the practical environmental activities, a system of views and beliefs which determine ecological orientation of the whole life activity of the personality of a future specialist, his attitude to the environment and himself. Self-determination of the student in the system “biosphere – society – personality” and transfer of the ideal model of this relationship to the sphere of his own life activity constitute the essence of the ecological culture.
Formation of the ecological culture represents a process of consistent acquisition by a student of ecological knowledge, skills, habits, development of his personal views and beliefs on the environmental problems, critical perception, emotional experience, awareness of the role of his personality in the solution of the ecological problems, the necessity in the ecologically appropriate behavior in the environment. The levels of the development of ecological culture are characterized by such criteria as responsibility for the behavior in nature, presence of the system of ecological knowledge, skills, habits, need for active ecologically appropriate activity in any living conditions. According to these criteria different levels of the development of ecological culture of the student are distinguished: low, medium, high.