An action research to develop environmental awareness and critical thinking skills in secondary school students with envi̇ronmental educati̇on for sustai̇nable development

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of environmental education for sustainable development designed for secondary school seventh grade students on environmental awareness and critical thinking skills, to identify the problem situations that arise during the implementation of the education, to produce solutions and to apply and evaluate the proposed solutions. The research includes a nine-week practice in the 2014-2015 academic year, and study at a state secondary school in Seyhan district of Adana, determined by criteria sampling methods for sampling the sampling of the study it consisted of 17 middle school seventh graders, 9 of whom were girls and 8 boys. In the research conducted as an action research, the Environmental Awareness Achievement Test(EAAT), Environmental Awareness Attitute Scale(EAAS) and Environmental Awareness Behavior Scale(EABS), which were developed by the researcher and, was used to measure environmental awareness and Critical Thinking Skills Test in Environmental Education (CTSTEE) was used to examine critical thinking skills, and both assessment tools were applied twice before and after the practice. Qualitative data sources consisted of semi-structured interviews, unstructured observation, researcher's diary, student diaries, self-assessment form and course worksheets and assignments. Within the scope of the data analysis, while the t-test was used for the dependent samples for the quantitative data, the inductive analysis and deductive analysis in accordance with the content analysis approach and descriptive analysis approaches were used for qualitative data. In the study, Kendall's Coefficient of Compliance was calculated within the scope of validity and reliability for quantitative data, while expert analysis, long-term interaction, detailed description and reporting, coding control and data diversification methods were used for qualitative data. In the research, as a result of pre-test and semi-structured interview analysis conducted by the tests in order to determine the current situation, it was found out that the students' environmental awareness levels were low especially in environmental knowledge subscale and they were very low in terms of critical thinking skills and it was decided to conduct an action research. While the most common problem in the action research process was making multiple evaluations, it was determined that there were problems in the assessment from the holistic point of view, having problems in language and expression, difficulty in comprehending the reading, and difficulty in the process due to the lack of active learning experience. When the pre-test and post-test scores of the Environmental Awareness Achievement Test, Environmental Awareness Attitute Scale and Environmental Awareness Behavior Scale for the development of environmental awareness in students and Critical Thinking Skills Test in Environmental Education for the development of critical thinking skills were examined, a significant difference was found in favor of post-tests in both tests. In addition, this result was found to be consistent with the qualitative data. In this context, sustainable environmental education was effective in developing environmental awareness and critical thinking skills in students. In addition, the process was highly appreciated by the students, the students found it valuable and internalized what was learned in the process, and the researcher contributed to his own development with this application. Overall, it was found that the education prepared with the focus on environmental education for sustainable development was successful in developing environmental awareness and critical thinking skills. Based on these results, it was suggested to students to implement these and similar activities within the scope of different courses, to include activities involving multiple assessment tasks, to carry out studies to improve reading comprehension skills and to provide sustainable environmental education in secondary school curriculum. Furthermore, suggestions such as treating the sub-topics of future research as separate units over a longer period of time and organizing studies for different levels have been presented.