Recognition levels of primary school students the plants in their immediate surroundings: Bolu example

The purpose of this study; is to identify the awareness levels of students studying at 8th grade of primary school against plants in their immediate surroundings,Sample of the study constitutes of 124 students in total (68 female, 56 male) who study at 8th grade in Bolu during education term of 2007-2008.This study sought to identify awareness levels of students against plants in their surroundings. For the purpose of collecting data, photographs of 60 plants which can be seen most frequently by the students were taken and students were asked to identify these plants. During the process of identifying species of plants, 3 specialists were asked to help. Additionally, using the attainments of program, 3 semi-structured questions were prepared. Data obtained as a result of the application were analyzed by using SPSS 16.00 packaged software.According to the results of this study;All of the students could only identify apple plant correctly among plants in the photographs. 25 plants were not identified by any of the students.As a result of this study, it became apparent that students do not recognize majority of plants in their surroundings even though interest acquisition is included in science programs. Especially, plants such as rose, honeysuckle, field poppy, linden which are seen frequently in their surroundings were not identified by the majority of the students. For this purpose, educational attainments shouldn?t be transferred only in the classrooms where students are passive, all kinds of sources in the immediate surroundings of students which may be associated with their daily life must be used and awareness of students against both plants in their surroundings and biological variety in general must be enriched.