Investigation and evaluation of ecological footprint awareness levels of science and Turkish teacher candidates

The aim of this study is to compare the ecological footprint awareness levels of the candidates of Science and Turkish teachers in terms of gender, department, class level, longest living place, monthly income level, mother education level and father education level. For this purpose, the research was conducted in the 2016-2017 education period, with 217 teacher candidates studying at 1st and 4th grade levels of Department of Science Education and Department of Turkish Language Teaching in Faculty of Education of Akdeniz University. A descriptive (screening) model was used in the research. A 5-point likert type Ecological Footprint Awareness Scale consisting of 46 items prepared by Coşkun (2013) was applied to the prospective teachers participating in the research. The data obtained as a result of the applied scales were loaded to SPSS 23.0 packet program and descriptive analyzes were made. Descriptive analyzes, one-way ANOVA, t-Test of independent groups and Pearson Correlation were used in the analysis of data for teacher candidates. As a result of this study, no significant difference was observed in ecological footprint awareness levels for the variables namely gender, class level, longest living place, maternal education level and father education level when the whole of the teacher candidates were considered, whereas only a meaningful difference was observed in terms of monthly income level variable. Finally, when the awareness among ecological footprint sub-dimensions of teacher candidates was examined, it was determined that the highest meaningful relationship between energy dimension and water consumption dimension in both sections. Keywords: Environment, Environmental Problems, Environmental Education, Ecological Footprint