Attitudes of secondary school students towards environmental problems

Humanity has been undergoing an adaptation between man and the environment throughout history. Along with the development of the industrial movement, the impact and pressure of humans on the environment has incurred numerous disruptive effects during the last 200 years. Irregular urbanization intensified by the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society has brought along many problems such as industrial zones remaining inside the city, air pollution, destruction of forest areas, misuse of agricultural lands, and global warming. Increasing environmental problems have impelled states and especially industrialized countries to take various measures. As a result, developed countries have started toal locate budgets for environmental protection. Society needs to act consciously for a sustainable environment and this means that individuals need to be equipped with environmental protection skills from an early age with effectively delivered environmental instruction. The aim of environmental instruction is to raise individuals who are sensitive to the environment, protect and use their environment correctly, respect environmental balances, are aware that the resources in nature are limited and that a clean environment is a legacy from our ancestors to be held in trust for future generations. In this respect, the aim of the study is to investigate the attitudes of secondary school students towards environmental problems. For this purpose, the "Attitude Scale Towards Environmental Problems" was applied in the path followed. In line with obtaining the data to be used in the research, the Attitude Scale towards Environmental Problems and demographic information form were used. The Attitude Scale towards Environmental Problems and Demographic Information Form were used to collect data to be used in the study. The application was applied to students with different socio-economic characteristics and 580 data were reached. The results of the scale analyzed by the SPSS program were used to determine the attitudes in this regard. Mann Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test were applied for multiple comparisons due to the lack of normal distrubition of data. With analysis of the data, it is seen that there is a significant impact on the attitudes of secondary school students towards environmental problems. In terms of the scale result; while there is a significant difference according to gender and the number of people living in the household, there was no significant difference according to the class, number of people working in the household, number of siblings, mother's education level, father's education level and income status.