Envitronmental literacy levels of prospective science teachers

The purpose of this survey is to specify the environmental literacy levels of the prospective teachers who study 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th classes in science teaching, in accordance with environmental literacy constituents.The survey was carried out among 271 prospective teachers who study 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th classes in Sakarya University, Faculty of Education, Department of Primary Education Science Teaching in the 2nd Academic Term of 2009-2010 Academic Year and by using general scanning model. The Environmental Literacy Scale which includes knowledge, attitude, behavior and perception that are the environmental literacy constituents was used as a data collection instrument. The data were analyzed through SPSS statistical program. In data analysis, the independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA test and simple correlation analysis were used.As a consequence of the survey, it has been specified that the prospective science teachers have intermediate level environmental literacy. It has also been specified that the prospective teachers partially have high-level environmental attitude; low level environmental knowledge and environmental behavior; and intermediate level environmental perception. In addition, a meaningful relationship has been specified between environmental literacy constituents and the ages of prospective teachers and if they have received environmental education; however, a meaningful relationship has been specified just between the environmental perception and environmental attitude points, while evaluating the relationship between the gender and environmental literacy constituents. No meaningful relationships could be specified between the monthly incomes of the parents of the prospective teachers, their parents? educational background, the settlements where they live and environmental literacy constituents. Finally, it has been specified that there is a meaningful weak relationship between environmental knowledge-environmental attitude and environmental knowledge-environmental behavior points in the positive direction; while there is a meaningful intermediate-level relationship between environmental knowledge-environmental perception, environmental attitude-environmental behavior, environmental attitude-environmental perception and environmental behavior-environmental perception in the positive direction.