Although there have been a number of studies that have explored secondary in-service and pre-service teachers' beliefs about STS education, levels of environmental literacy, attitudes toward teaching STS or environmental issues, and/or the impact of teacher education programs on teacher beliefs and attitudes, studies involving elementary pre-service teachers are extremely scarce. In an effort to begin to bridge this gap in the literature, the current study was initiated to serve as a descriptive exploratory field test for a subsequent study that intends to examine the impact that a STS-oriented science methods course has on pre-service elementary teachers' level of environmental literacy, their views and perceptions toward STS issues, and the instruction of such issues in their classrooms. The aim of the current study was to gain a better understanding of elementary pre-service teachers' attitudes toward environmental and STS issues, their levels of environmental literacy and knowledge about STS, and their views about teaching environmental and STS issues to their prospective students. The results of this study indicated low levels of environmental literacy among the sample of elementary pre-service teachers. They were also indicative of low levels of personal interest in STS issues. The slightly better scores on the section of the Perception of STS (PSTS) instrument dealing with participants' views toward teaching STS in the classroom bode well and provide hope that if equipped with sufficient understanding of STS and environmental issues and the STS instructional framework, these participants are willing and consider it important to teach their prospective students about these issues. (Contains 5 figures and 3 tables.)