Investigating the impact of case based education on 7th class students' environmental literacy

This study investigates the effect of the case method as teaching method to improve environmental literacy of 7th grade students. The study is a quasi-experimental model with static group comparison design. This study was conducted with the 7 th grade 70 students who are at Kastamonu Reşit Çubukçuoğlu Secondary School and Vali Aydın Arslan Secondary School. The students at Vali Aydın Arslan Secondary School were chosen as the experimental group, the students at Vali Aydın Arslan Secondary School were chosen the control group. During the educational treatment period, in experimental group the cases that were chosen with accordance the subject matter related environment topics in Science Teaching Curriculum, were used as a teaching method. In contrast to this, the same topics were instructed throughout conventional manner in control group. Practicing time prolonged 3.5 weeks that was 14 lesson hours for groups. From the both experimental and control groups, the data were collected pre- and post-period of treatment throughout Environmental Achievement Test, Affective Tendency toward Environment Scale, Responsible Behavior toward Environment Scale and Ability to Determine and Solve Environmental Problem Test. The obtained data was described with mean scores and standard deviation. Pre- and post- test scores between the control and the experimental groups analyzed with independent sample t-test. On the other hands, pre- and post-test scores within groups were analyzed with paired sample-t test. As the results, it was determined that sample case method had a positive effect on students' environmental knowledge level while it had no influence on improving of the students' positive affective tendency, responsible behavior and problem solve skills.