The Change of Secondary School Students' Environmental Consciousness, Attitude and Behaviors with Nature Education Project

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the nature education project on the attitudes and awareness levels of secondary school students towards the environment. The research is based on an experimental model which is a type quantitative research approaches and the population consisting of the students studying at a secondary school in Denizli. The sample of the study consists of 24 students participating in the project selected from Denizli. The first criterion for the selection of the students was determined as the participation of a 4006 science fair before, and other criteria were some variables such as academic achievement, gender, absence of health problems, and high communication skills. The data of the study collected with the journal form was used to gather the opinions and thoughts of the participants through an “Environmental Affect Scale” (EAS) consisting of 15 questions in type of five point likert scale along with another “Environmental Behavior Scale” (EBS) consists of 12 questions in type of seven point likert scale that were both developed by Sontay, Gökdere & Usta (2014). SPSS 22 program is used in the analysis of the data.When the results obtained are evaluated in general, it is evident that nature education program significantly contributes to both the environmental consciousness and environmental attitudes of the participants. In addition, in the evaluation made according to the sub-dimensions of the attitude scale, it is clearly seen that the program increases students' positive attitudes towards the environment as well as ensuring their permanence. However, no significant differences were found in the environmental perception scores of the students.