Cognitive structures of 5th grade students regarding environmental issues

The concept of the environment covers a wide range of diversity. Environmental education should be prioritized to reduce environmental issues and provide solutions to them. Developing awareness in students can be achieved through effective and efficient environmental education. In this sense, understanding students' perceptions of environmental issues is crucial for developing environmental education programs. Social studies plays a significant role in instructing knowledge and skills related to environmental education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive structures and misconceptions of 5th grade students regarding environmental issues. The study was conducted using a descriptive survey model. The study group consisted of 255 5th grade students during the 2021-2022 academic year in three secondary schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Elazığ. The data were collected using a word association test, which included environmental issues such as air pollution, soil pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, and erosion. Students' responses to the test were used to form frequency tables, and accordingly, concept maps were generated. It was found that students most frequently associated the key concept "air pollution" with terms such as exhaust, factory smoke, smoke, and factories. Regarding the key concept "soil pollution," the most commonly repeated words were garbage, batteries, waste, plastic, and plastic bottles. For the key concept "water pollution," the participants frequently mentioned words such as garbage, factory waste, waste, fish death, and oil. Students mainly associated the key concept "noise pollution" with terms such as car horns, music, cars, shouting, loud noise, and sound. Finally, for the key concept "erosion," the most frequently repeated terms were soil sliding, soil, and soil movement. The findings indicated that students had a cognitive understanding of air, soil, water, and noise pollution, but they exhibited misconceptions regarding erosion. Overall, it can be concluded that students possessed some knowledge of environmental issues. However, the examination of the on this topic revealed that students' knowledge was not at a sufficient level. Many students provided non-scientific or superficial responses, while some students produced sentences containing misconceptions, indicating that they experienced conceptual misunderstandings. Key Words: Word Association Test, Cognitive Structure, Social Studies, Environmental İssues