An examination of environment awareness of fourth grade students in primary school: An example of Kocaeli - Dilovasi

The aim of this study is to determine the environment awareness of primary school fourth grade students. The survey model which is one of the quantitative research designs was used in the research. "Primary School Environment Awareness Scale" developed by Yıldız Yılmaz ve Mentiş Taş (2017) was used as a data collection tool. The scale consists of 4 sub-dimensions and 35 items in 5-point Likert type. The study group consists of fourth grade students from 7 primary schools in Dilovası district of Kocaeli province in 2020-2021 academic year. A total of 613 students, 289 girls and 324 boys were included in the study group selected by simple random sampling method. The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS 25.0 package program. According to the findings obtained from the data, it was determined that there was a significant difference in environment awareness of primary school fourth grade students according to gender. The differentiation was in favor of girls in the sub-dimensions of life in nature, environmental responsibility and total scale. It was determined that environment awareness of the students there was no statistically difference according to the number of siblings. According to the education level of the mothers, it was determined that the environment awareness of the students increased as the education level of the mothers increased in the sub-dimensions of life in nature and environmental responsibility. In terms of father education level variable it was determined that environment awareness of primary school students there was no statistically difference in the sub-dimensions of environmental responsibility and the continuity of living creatures. However, the environment awareness of children whose high education level of fathers it was concluded that there was a statistically significant difference in the scale sum, sub-dimension of life in nature and renewable energy resources. It was revealed that the environmental awareness of primary school fourth grade students were at a high level in the total scale. Keywords: Environment, environment awareness, primary school fourth grade students.