Level of plant recognition in immediate vicinity of science teacher candidates

This study has been conducted to determine the awareness about biological varlety and the limitation of knowledge about plant recognition of science teacher candidates. Combined research method, which supports qualitative findings with quantitative findings while being widely used in science researches and comperative state study which focuses on the differences between two changeables have been chosen.Because the research is conducted for a spesific purpose, teacher candidates who take lessons about environment and those who do not have been chosen with purposeful sampling method. The research has been conducted with 1st and 2st year teacher candidates who do not get lectures on nature and 3 rd and 4 th year candidates who do. The data has been collected in two ways. İn the first part a form is given to assess their level of plant recognition and quantitative findings are received with a statistics programe. İn the second part an interview form is used to learn more about their stand on biovariety and enviromental issues with bio-diversity based questions. Quantitative findings are acquired with a statistics programe and qualitative findings are acquired by content analysis. The findings suggest that there is a significant difference between male and female participants and that they realize more about the plants and their importance as their Education proceeds. While the source where candidate teachers learn about environment is the internet; it is recognized that they consult to other publishings and sources as their Education level increases.Candidates confuse the consept of bio-diversity with diversity of kind. While they use Education Technologies and material lesson which they are given in the 3rd year to create a project about the enviroment, they also presented other teaching methods like creating teaching methods and educational games. Prospective teachers stated that the reason why bio-diversity is decreasins is basıcally because the community is ignorant and that education and punishment is necessary for it to increase. Another finding is that students who get lessons like "nature science" or "evolution" are better informed, moreover they feel more teacher-like because of their internship programe in the final year and therefore produce more age-appropriate projects for their students. Teacher candidates that study at their 4th year have higher enviromental awareness in comparison to lower grades but all candidates confused bio-diversity with kind-diversity, which made clear that the curriculum had a positive impact but not enough.