The effect of activities that based on empathy skill to children's environmental consciovsness and their academic achievements

Environmental problems are at the head of present day problems.Though the human being knows the importance of their living environment, in this regard a chain of neglect is ongoing. In order to leave a more livable environment for the future generations every person should be aware of their responsibilities. The best way to create this awareness goes through education. Responsible and conscious future individuals will be shaped by the hands of teachers with the use of various methods and techniques. In this work, on the basis of the thought of setting the empathy skills targeted to be acquired by students in the social studies curriculum (2005 and updated 2017) to work, the analysis of the effects of education based on the empathy skill in social studies for the students to acquire environmental awareness was aimed at. The work group of the research is comprised of 22 female and 29 male students totaling 51 students from 2 different branches of a middle school in the province of Aksaray. In the process of data gathering, the "achievement test" created by the researcher by taking into consideration the "Environmental Awareness Scale" developed by Uzun, Sağlam & Varnacı Uzun (2008) unit objectives and expert opinions. The SPSS program was used in the statistical analysis of the obtained data. The t-test, Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed rank test were used for the dependent and independent groups fitting the research's sub problems. The normal distribution situation concerning the data was tested with Shapiro Wilk. İn the research results; As a result of the analyses attained by comparing achievement tests last test of the experimental and control groups despite finding no reasonable difference between the two groups academic achievement, if the point increase difference is taken into consideration, it is clear that the experimental groups academic achievement increase is higher. If the experimental and control groups environmental awareness scale last test point averages are examined, statistically there is a reasonable difference in favor of the experimental groups last test points. These obtained data show that education and practice given based on empathy skill significantly increased the level of environmental awareness in the experimental group. For this reason; the increase of reserved units and achievements for environmental education in lessons will decrease the concern of teachers keeping up with the academic units as well as give opportunities for activities enhancing the students' environmental awareness. However, it is advised that teachers support the present syllabus with various methods and techniques. Keywords: social studies education, empathy skill based education, environmental awareness, environmental education, empathy skills