Investigation the effect of STEM-based activities prepared about climate change on different variables

Objective: The primary objective of this research was to develop a STEM-based instructional design addressing the theme of climate change for prospective science teachers and to examine the impact of educational practices implemented in line with this design on the teaching-learning process. These practices were implemented through STEM-based climate change activities developed for this purpose. Materials and Methods: The research was conducted at Aydın Adnan Menderes University in the fall semester of the 2024-2025 academic year with 4th-year prospective science teachers in the Faculty of Education, within the scope of the Interdisciplinary Science Education course. In this thesis, these advantages of the mixed method were utilized. In the quantitative dimension of the study, the participants' climate change knowledge scale, their confidence in this knowledge scale, their environmentally friendly behavior tendencies scale, their 21st century skill competencies scale, their perceptions towards STEM scale, and their self-efficacy in STEM teaching scale were applied to the lessons with the 5E plan within the scope of STEM education, and the data were analyzed using the SPSS Statiscs 21 analysis program. In the qualitative dimension, self- and peer-assessment forms for STEM education, as well as lesson plan evaluation forms, were used to collect the prospective teachers' opinions on the lesson plans they developed and the lesson presentations they presented. Through these forms, participants' thoughts about the process were obtained individually and in written format. Findings: To determine the analysis method to be applied to the quantitative data in the study, a normality test was first performed. The data were observed to be normally distributed. A paired (dependent) samples t-test was applied between the groups. Significance levels in these tests were accepted as p<0.05. According to the results of the paired (dependent) samples t-test, it was concluded that there was a significant difference in terms of the total mean scores and mean scores of the sub-dimensions of all scales except for the information media and technology skills of the 21st century skill competencies scale, and this difference was in favor of the post-tests. Result: STEM-based instructional design addressing the theme of climate change had a positive impact on prospective science teachers' knowledge of climate change, their confidence in this knowledge, their tendency toward environmentally friendly behavior, their 21st-century skill competencies, their perceptions of STEM, and their self-efficacy in STEM teaching. In the qualitative section, self- and peer-assessment forms and lesson plan evaluation forms for STEM teaching were utilized, and the implementation was concluded to have positively impacted the positive development of prospective teachers. Key Word: Climate change, Environmental education, Peer and self-assessment, Prospective science teachers, STEM education.