Investigation of the environmental awareness of preschool teachers and the environmental awareness levels of preschool children

The aim of this study is to determine the environmental awareness levels of preschool children, to determine the environmental awareness level of preschool teachers, to examine the environmental awareness levels of preschool students according to the environmental awareness level of teachers, and to reveal whether dimensions such as gender, educational status, and seniority have an effect on these. Is to put. The study group of the research consists of 170 preschool children attending public kindergartens in Gölcük district of Kocaeli province and 15 preschool teachers who teach in these classes. In this study, Environmental Awareness and Attitude Scale for Preschool Children was used to determine the environmental awareness levels of preschool children; Environmental Awareness Screening List Scale was used to determine the environmental awareness levels of preschool teachers, and a personal information form was used to determine the demographic characteristics of teachers. Data analysis was carried out with SPSS 27.0; Descriptive statistics, frequency, mean, standard deviation values, correlation and t test analyzes were applied to the data; Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to determine whether students' environmental awareness levels differ according to teacher scores. When the research findings were examined, it was seen that the environmental awareness levels of preschool teachers did not differ according to their age, seniority and education level, and age was a determining variable only in the "Knowledge" sub-dimension of the scale. It was determined that students' environmental awareness levels did not differ according to gender. Another finding showed that whether teachers have environmental awareness or not is not the only determinant of the environmental awareness of students in their classes. Keywords: Preschool period, Environmental awareness, Environmental awareness, Environmental education.