The investigation of the effect of Eco-schools program on responsible behavior, environmental awareness and basic skill levels of preschool students

This study was carried out in order to increase the effect of the Eco-Schools program on the environmental attitudes, responsible behavior and basic skill position of the preschool students. The Eco-Schools program is an environmental education program carried out by the Turkish Environmental Education Foundation (TÜRÇEV) in our country, and it is a green flag awarded program that can be applied at all levels from pre-school to secondary education. In the study, sequential nested mixed design, which is one of the mixed research designs in which quantitative and qualitative methods are used together, was used. In the quantitative part of the study, a weak experimental design, a single group pretest-posttest design was used.The qualitative part of the research was carried out as an individual teacher action research, which is one of the action research types consisting of activities with the theme of environment, garbage-waste, recycling within the scope of the Eco-Schools Program planned by the researcher.The qualitative part of the research was carried out as an individual teacher action research, which is one of the action research types consisting of activities with the theme of environment, garbage-waste, recycling within the scope of the Eco-Schools Program planned. Quantitative and qualitative data in research; 'Attitudes towards Environment Scale (CATES-PV)', 'Responsible Behavior Scale (SDS)', 'Basic Skills Scale for Pre-School Students (AÖYTBÖ)' were collected through student interview form and researcher diaries. In the 2020-2021 academic year, eco-school activities on environment, garbage-waste and recycling were implemented with a working group consisting of 20 students in the 5-year-old group who continued face-to-face education during the pandemic process. The scales were applied as a pre-test and post-test before the eco-school activities.During the implementation phase of the activities, diaries were kept by the researcher.At the end of the practices, student interviews were conducted in line with the interview questions developed by the researcher.In line with the data obtained from the research, it was determined that there was a significant increase in students' attitudes towards the environment, responsible behavior and basic process skill levels at the end of the implementation of eco-school activities.