Investigation of the effects of STEM educational activities using biomimicry implication on the preservice science teachers' environmental literacy skills

This research aims to examine the effects of activities prepared for STEM education, in which biomimicry implementation is used, on the environmental literacy skills of the 4th-grade pre-service science teachers. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design with the unequalized control group, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the research. The implementation of the research was carried out in the 2021-2022 Fall semester with fourth-grade pre-service science teachers studying at Çukurova University. The data of the study were collected using the Academic Achievement Test (ABT), developed by the researcher, the affective disposition scale developed by Yavetz, Goldman, and Pe'er (2009) and adapted into Turkish by Fettahlıoğlu, Timur, and Timur (2016), and environmentally responsible behavior scale, developed by Yavetz, Goldman, and Pe'er (2009) adapted into Turkish by Timur (2011). The datum of the research was analyzed with the SPSS 20.00 package program. The normal distribution of the datum was analyzed with the Shapiro Wilk test. Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks Test and Mann Whitney U-test were used in the analysis of non-normally distributed data. Descriptive statistics, dependent and independent groups t-test were used in the analysis of normally distributed data. At the end of the research, a statistically significant difference was found between the academic achievement, affective disposition, and environmentally responsible behavior pretest-posttest scores of the experimental group students in favor of the posttest. There was no statistically significant difference between the control group students' academic achievement and affective disposition pretest-posttest scores However, a statistically significant difference was found between the environmentally responsible behavior pretest-posttest scores in favor of the post-test. There was no statistically significant difference between the academic achievement, affective disposition, and behavioral post-test scores of the experimental and control group students. Key Words: Science education,enviromental education,biomimicry,STEM