İnvestigation of tendencies of participating in outside scool learning activities in Turkey with special astronomy activities: A retrospective scan study

Within the scope of this thesis study, based on the number of science museums or centers in provinces or districts in Turkey, their regional distribution, and the number of public activities or visitors of some selected science centers on an annual basis, the data obtained were correlated with the application statistics for the Tübitak National Observatory (TUG) Sky Observation Festivals (GGŞ) in 2019, 2020 and 2022*; it is aimed to answer the question of whether there is a correlation between the requests from provinces with science centers (BM) or science museums and provinces without (in the case of TUG) to participate in national-scale festivals. Within the scope of this thesis, the quantitative method chosen is a case study design and a case analysis study was conducted in the light of the numerical data obtained from the TUG Directorate. When 3 years of data were analyzed retrospectively, it was found that some provinces stood out in the TUG-GGŞ application system. The findings for Bursa, Kocaeli and Konya are remarkable. Especially in Konya province, the largest Science Center of our country was established by TÜBİTAK in 2014, and informal science education services to teachers, students and families in the province have become regular in the last 9 years. Workshops themed on astronomy and space sciences, night observation activities with telescopes have had an impact on children and young people, and due to the close location of this city to Antalya province, despite its low population compared to Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, it has consistently ranked in the top 10 in applications to the TUG-SGŞ's held in Saklıkent, Antalya. Bursa and Kocaeli also show similar characteristics to Konya. In every year analyzed, Antalya was also among the prominent provinces, but the fact that it is the host province makes this result natural. In addition, due to the presence and visibility of TUG in Antalya, there has always been a high level of interest in Space Sciences and Astronomy among the public. The income, education level and population potential of Ankara and Istanbul will naturally lead to a high number of applications from these cities. The high number of applications from these provinces to TUG-GGŞ does not indicate a significant situation. However, the relatively high number of applications from İzmir and Diyarbakır is worth examining. Although Izmir does not have a large TUBITAK-supported BM, regular activities of the existing municipal BMs, Ege University Astronomy Department and E.U. Observatory, and undoubtedly favorable population, education and economic opportunities explain the positive situation. In Diyarbakır, it can be said that the Zerzevan Sky Observation Events organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and Technology and TUG for 2 consecutive years increased the interest of students, teachers and adults in the city in astronomy-themed informal science activities. While the positive impact of the UN and the Planetarium built in Denizli in recent years is thought to be reflected in the 2022 TUG-GGŞ statistics, the interest in astronomy and sky observations in the south-western-south-eastern Mediterranean provinces such as Mersin, Hatay, Adana, and Muğla in terms of geographical location is influenced by the influence of Antalya. The number of applications made to the TUG Astronomy Festival from all cities in Turkey, the capital city of the city, the ratio of applications to the population, whether there is an observatory and a science center or not, a free simple regression analysis was applied, and it was found that whether there is a science center in a city or not, the application to the TUG Observation Festival is not significant (p = 0.62). . However, by analyzing the situation of an observatory in a city with the same application data, there is a positive (r=0.22) significant relationship between the number of applications to the TUG observation festival (p=0.002). *Due to the pandemic, TUG-GGŞ could not be held in 2021.