The influence of the project based learning style to the stundent's success for teaching ecology unit (A sample of the city of İstanbul)

This research aims to investigate whether there is a meaningful difference between the acquisition of environmental consciousness of the students at the schools applying Project Method and the students at other schools or not.The study is an experimental, this research was conducted among the students of a Private High School in İstanbul and the students of a Public High School in İstanbul during the 1st Semester of 2006-2007 Education Year. Private High School which applies Project Method was determined as the experiment group while Public High School which uses the classical method was determined as the control group. 30 students from these schools were chosen by random sampling method. The subject of ecology was taught by the classical method in the control group but in the experiment group it was taught by using the lesson plan which was designed according to the Project Method.)The students who were chosen for the research had been given a pre-test before the lesson was taught. By doing this, how much they had already known about the subject, and whether the levels of availability were equal or not was determined. Following this, the teachers of the both groups taught the subject of ecology using their lesson plans suitable to the methods they were using at their schools. The final test was applied after the subject was learned by both groups.)The comparison of the success of the students in the control and experiment groups was done using the independent t-test. It can be said that there is a meaningful difference between the education given by the Project Method and classical method in favor of the experiment group when the academic success of the students was taken into consideration.)