Examination of the relationship between the children's biophilia (Affinity towards nature) and empathy skills of 60-72 months-old children

Since the earliest times of humanity, the influence of nature on man has always been significant. Human being, who is essentially a part of nature, has moved away from nature, of which it is a part, with industrialization, urbanization and technological revolutions. Children are particularly affected by this distancing. Studies have shown that being in touch with nature improves the child's motor and cognitive skills, as well as prosocial skills such as helping each other, protecting living things, and being sensitive to the environment. For this reason, it is important to measure the children's biophilia and to know how much biophilia affects the children's social skills. Empathy, which has an important place in the social-emotional development of the child, is one of these skills. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between biophilia levels and empathy skills of 60-72 months-old children. In this study, "Biophilia Scale for Children" and "Empathy Scale for Children" were used as data collection tools. The research is a quantitative study in relational survey model. The study group of the research consists of 150 children aged 60-72 months who attend the official kindergartens and primary school kindergartens affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Adapazarı and Serdivan districts of Sakarya province. As a result of the analysis, it was found that there was a high level of positive correlation between the children's biophilia and their empathy skills. As a result of the examination of the scale total scores of both scales according to the variables, while the biophilia levels of children differ significantly according to the frequency of being in nature; It was found that empathy skills differed significantly according to the age of the father.