Investigation of the effect of environmental protective activities on the environmental literacy of students

In this study, it is aimed to examine the effects of activities related to environmental protective behaviors on students' environmental literacy. The study group of the research consists of 25, 5th grade students attending Cumayeri Secondary School in Cumayeri district of Düzce in the 2019-2020 academic year. As the study also aimed to examine whether families have an effect on students' environmental literacy, a pre-test was applied to the parents of the students. Since the research sample (school and student) was chosen from easily accessible and practicable units, the appropriate sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used. As data collection tools; to students, the Environmental Literacy Scale for Primary Education Second Level Students ın order to determine environmental literacy and the Word Association Test to determine their thoughts on the environment were used and a student also wanted to draw pictures about wastes. As for families; Environmental Literacy Scale for Adults was used to determine environmental literacy. The quantitative data obtained from the pre-test and post-test in the study were analayzed by using the SPSS 18 program, the data obtained from the WAT were analyzed by descriptive statistics and frequency tables and concept maps for each keyword were formed, and the pictures were analyzed by content analysis. There was no correlation between students 'environmental literacy level and their parents' environmental literacy level. The average of the environmental literacy levels determined in the pre-tests of the students was 3.99. The average of environmental literacy levels determined in the pre-tests of the parents was 3.26. According to the analysis of environmental literacy pre-test and post-test data of 25 students participating in the research in line with the determined sub-problem, since both tests showed normal distribution, it was decided to apply the Dependent Samples t-Test in order to compare the pre-test and post-test scores of the group. Since p<0.05, it is seen that there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the group. From these findings, it was understood that there was a statistically significant difference between environmental protective behaviors and environmental literacy after activities aimed at developing environmental protective behavior. After the activities aimed at developing environmental protective behavior, it was concluded that there was a difference in the cognitive structures of the students against the environment determined by the post-test, according to the cognitive structures determined by the pre-test.