A the effect of the environmental education program based on picture books on the environmental attitudes and opinions of pre-school children

This research was carried out to examine the effect of the Picture Book-Based Environmental Education Program on the environmental attitudes and views of preschool children. The research was designed according to the explanatory sequential design, one of the mixed method designs. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected in the study. While quantitative data were collected with the Children's Attitudes towards Environment Scale-Preschool Version (CATES-PV), qualitative data were collected through interview questions. In the quantitative part of the study, a single-group pre-test-post-test experimental design was used, and in the qualitative part, a case study design was used. Mann Whitney-U Test, Kruskal Wallis-H Test, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used for quantitative data analysis of the research, and content analysis was used for qualitative data analysis. The study group of the research consists of 16 children aged 60-72 months who attend a pre-school education institution affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the Midyat district of Mardin province. The Environmental Education Program Based on Picture Books, developed by the researcher, consists of 20 sessions. The program was implemented by the researcher. According to the results of the quantitative research, environmental attitudes of preschool children did not show a significant difference in terms of gender, age, previous pre-school education, mother's education level, father's education level. According to the pretest and posttest results, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the environmental attitude scores of the children and this difference was in favor of the posttest. According to the qualitative research results, after the Picture Book-Based Environmental Education Program, a change was determined in children's environmental views on consumption habits, environmental protection, recycling-reuse and living habits in terms of ecocentric environmental perspective. In general, it has been determined that the Environmental Education Program Based on Picture Books is effective on children's environmental attitudes and environmental views. In line with the results of the research, suggestions for preschool teachers and researchers were presented. Keywords: Preschool education, environmental education, environmental ethics, environmental attitude, ecocentric (environmentally centered) environmental view, anthropocentric (human centered) environmental view.