Participation of recreational activities and environmental sensitivity

This research was held with the aim of analyzing participation of university students in recreational activities and sensitivity of participators towards environmental problems as a result of this.University students taking education in the universities of Turkey constitute the universe of the research and 587 university students taking education in the state universities of Ankara constitute the sample.?Environmental Sensitivity Scale? and personal information form developed by the researcher was used as data gathering tool in the research.Descriptive statistical analysis was held in order to determine demographic allocation of the participators. Independent samples t-test analysis was applied in the data in order to test whether or not there is a statistically significant difference in participators according to their sex and participation status in nature sports in 3 sub dimensions of the questionnaire exploited in the research. Moreover, one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied in order to test whether or not there is a significant difference in participators according to their age, wealth levels and settlement unit they have lived for the longest period. Significance level was accepted as 0.05 in the research.As a result of the research;1.It was determined that environmental sensitivity of participators displays a difference according to their sex and this difference results from ?female? participators.2.It was determined that environmental sensitivity of participators does not display a significant difference according to age categories.3.It was determined that environmental sensitivity of participators displays a significance difference only in ?personal behavior? sub dimension according to their wealth status.4.It was determined that environmental sensitivity of participators displays a significance difference only in ?recommendation? sub dimension according to the settlement area they have lived for the longest period.5.It was determined that environmental sensitivity of participators displays a significance difference in ?general information? and ?personal behavior? sub dimensions according to their participation status in nature sports.Key Words: Recreation, environment, nature sports, environmental sensitivity.