Investigation of middle school students' knowledge andperceptions of global warming

The purpose of the current study is to investigate middle school 5th – 8th grade students' knowledge and perceptions of global warming. The study group of the current research is comprised of 667 students attending middle schools in the Defne province of the city of Hatay in the second term of 2015-2016 school year. As the data collection tools, "The Scale of Knowledge about Global Warming" developed by the researcher and "The Global Warming Perception Scale" ın used by Boyes, Stanisstreet and Youngling, (2008) and translated to Turkish by Aksan (2011) were used. In the analysis of the collected data, SPSS 18 program package was used. In the scale development process, factor analysis was employed and in the statistical data analysis, non-parametric tests Kuruskal Wallis H-test and Mann Whitney U test were used. As a result of the analyses conducted on the data collected through the Scale of Knowledge about Global Warming, the KR-20 reliability coefficient was found to be 0.850; the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the Global Warming Perception Scale was calculated to be 0.843. The results of the analyses show that the developed scale is valid and reliable. The results of the Mann Whitney U test have revealed that there is no gender-based significant difference between the global warming knowledge levels of the female and male participants (U= 52297,500; p= 0,183> 0,05). The participating students' global warming knowledge score means were found to be varying significantly depending on grade level according to Kruskal Wallis H test (X2(3) = 86,634, p<0,001). Moreover, the results of Kruskal Wallis H test have revealed that the participating students' perception mean scores related to prevention of global warming vary significantly depending on the school attended (X2(3) = 20,722, p<0,001). In addition, the results obtained from the students' opinions about global warming show that the students are lacking in knowledge about global warming, greenhouse effect and depletion of the ozone layer. In light of all these findings, some suggestions are made.