Examination of preservice science teachers environmental consciousness

Environmental problems have wait urgent solution in our age. Our consciousness is our most powerful equipment in the face of environmental problems that threaten our future. Consciousness contains sub-dimensions such as knowledge, attitude and behavior. The effect of the behavior dimension is great in point to individuals feel themselves responsible for environmental issues and fulfill their obligation. Having a positive attitude is a prerequisite for the behavior to change in the desired direction and contains sufficient information on its basis. Raising individuals with sufficient information, positive attitudes and behavior towards environmental issues can only be possible through environmental education. These elements also point to an improved environmental consciousness level. Teachers have important tasks in the process of acquiring and developing environmental awareness. Especially science lessons are more important with the ecological issues they have in them. Science teachers are also more responsible because of being the practitioner of these courses. It is important that science teacher candidates who will take part in this profession in the future should also graduate as advanced individuals in terms of environmental awareness. This study aims to reveal the factors affecting science teacher candidates' environmental consciousness levels. The study is designed as the surway model. Students of Science Teacher Education Department who are studying at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University in 2017-2018 spring semester constitutes the working group. The "Environmental Consciousness Scale" (ECS) was used as a means of quantitative data collection in the survey. This scale was developed by Schrenk (1994) adapted to Turkish by Erten (2005) and includes the students' knowledge of the environment, their attitudes towards the environment, and their behavior towards the environment. It is a measurement tool prepared in 5-point likert type consisting of 3 sub-dimensions. There are 60 items in the scale, 20 items for each sub-dimension mentioned. Cronbach α reliability of the scale was α = .97. The obtained data were transferred to the computer environment with the help of SPSS and analyzed. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficients, independent sample t test, one-way ANOVA, mean and frequency statistical methods were used for data analysis. In the study, it was concluded that the pre-service science teachers' attitudes towards the environment, their level of environment-friendly behaviors, their level of knowledge about the environment and their level of environmental awareness were high-medium level. On the other hand, there was a positive correlation between environmental knowledge levels, attitudes towards environment and exhibiting environmentally friendly behaviors. In addition, it was concluded that the gender of the preservice teachers did not cause any difference on their knowledge, attitude, behavior and awareness towards the environment. In the study, it was determined that the most preferred tool of science teacher candidates among the ways of acquiring information about the environment is the internet and they do not know the organizations that carry out environmental activities sufficiently.