Investigation of the effect of STEM activities on environmental education on middle school students' attitudes towards environmental problems, STEM perceptions and learning responsibilities, and their cognitive structures and opinions

In this study, it was aimed to examine the effects of STEM activities applied in environmental education on middle school students' attitudes towards environmental problems, learning responsibilities, STEM perceptions in addition to their cognitive structures and opinions. In this context, five environment-themed STEM activities were developed according to designed-based learning approach and applied to 12 seventh grade students studying in a countryside middle school in the west of Turkey in the first semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. The research was conducted according to the concurrent triangulation design from mixed research designs. While the quantitative data of the research were collected with the "Attitude Scale towards Environmental Problems", "STEM Perception Test" and "Responsibility for Learning Scale" applied in the form of pre-test and post-test, qualitative data were collected with the help of "Word Association Test" and "Semi-structured Interview Form". The quantitative data obtained were compared with the t-test for related samples through the SPSS 22.0 program, and the analysis of the qualitative data was carried out with the help of descriptive analysis and content analysis. According to the findings, the activities carried out had positive effects on the students' attitudes towards environmental problems, STEM perceptions and learning responsibilities. In addition, it was detected that the applied activities improved the cognitive structures of the students for STEM concept. Also, as a result of the interviews, it was determined that the students' awareness of nature increased and the students gained various knowledge and skills while having fun during the activity implementations. It is recommended that similar activities might be designed to address current environmental problems and applied to the students at different grade levels in the future.