Investigation of the cognitive development of secondary school 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students related to environmental problems, ecological footprint and water footprint concepts

This research aims to examine the cognitive development of secondary school 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students' concepts of environmental problems, ecological footprint and water footprint. Developmental research method, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. A total of 80 students, 16 from the 5th grade, 16 from the 6th grade, from the 7th grade and 21 from the 8th grade, participated in the research. Scripted open-ended questions and a semi-structured interview form about environmental problems, ecological footprint and water footprint concepts were used as data collection tools. In the first stage of the study, open-ended questions prepared with scenarios were asked to the students under the headings of environmental problems, ecological footprint and water footprint. The answers given were categorized according to whether they were scientifically expressed or not, identical to the definitions in the literature. Frequencies were determined by assigning themes and codes to the answers given. It has been determined that most of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students can answer the questions asked about the concepts of water pollution, soil pollution and air pollution under the title of environmental problems. In the questions asked under the heading of ecological footprint, it was determined that most of the students could not define the ecological footprint. In the questions asked under the title of water footprint, it was seen that none of the students could scientifically define the water footprint. In the second stage of the research, a semi-structured interview prepared in parallel with open-ended questions created with scenarios was conducted. five students from each of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades were selected, and a face-to-face semi-structured interview was conducted with a total of 20 students. It was determined that students were knowledgeable about environmental problems, but could not define the concepts of ecological footprint and water footprint. It was observed that students were not sufficient in defining the concepts of ecological footprint and water footprint. There was no increase in the number of scientific word usage as we moved to upper grades.