Evaluation of secondary school students' views on global climate change and their draft maps

One of the 21st century's most important problems is golbal warming and the resulting global climate change. Global warming is one of the most controversial and complex problems of our time, a popular topic that is frequently covered in both print and visual media and that almost everyone has something to say about. It is important to raise awareness about this issue from an early age. In this study, which was conducted to reveal secondary school students' perceptions of climate change, their thoughts on the causes of climate change, and to increase students' awareness and raise their level of consciousness, an answer to the question "What are the views of secondary school students on climate change?" was sought. The design of the research conducted with qualitative research method is the case study. A semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher was used to collect data in the study. The research was conducted in a secondary school affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in 2022-2023. The participants of the research consists of a secondary school students in Elmalı district of Antalya. The easily accessible sampling method, which is one of the purposive sampling methods, was preferred, and data were collected by appling to a total of 37 students in 6th and 7th grades. The data were analyzed using descriptive and content analysis. According to the results of the study, it was observed that students were concerned about global warming and climate change but did not have enough information about subject. They associated global warming mostly with the polar region and the melting of glaciers, which shows us that the media and news reports will have an impact on this perception of students. Based on the results of the study; global warming and climate change is an abstract subject with high misconceptions. It can be suggested that concretization should be used as much as possible in the teaching of this subject.