The Effectiveness of Environmental Education on Environmentally-Sensitive Behaviors

Bu çalışmada, 'çevre' konularında eğitim gören üniversite öğrencilerinin, çevre ve doğa korunmasına ilişkin teorik derslerde edindikleri bilgileri, davranışlarına aktarıp aktaramadıkları, yani sahip oldukları 'çevre bilgisi' ile gösterdikleri 'çevreci davranışlar' arasında bir ilişki olup olmadığı araştırılmıştır. Ayrıca, sosyodemografik parametrelere bir örnek olarak 'cinsiyet'in çevre bilgisi ve çevreci davranış üzerindeki etkileri ölçülmüştür. Bu amaçla, çevre bilgisini ve çevreci davranışları ölçen, iki farklı bölümden oluşan anket formu çevre alanında eğitim alan, Gazi Üniversitesi, Sağlık Hizmetleri Meslek Yüksek Okulu, Çevre Sağlığı Programı öğrencilerine ve kontrol amaçlı Ankara Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Sosyal Bilgiler Bölümü öğrencilerine uygulanmıştır. Anketlerin değerlendirilmesi sonucunda, çevre alanında eğitim alan ve almayan öğrenciler arasında 'çevre bilgisi' alanında, istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir fark bulunamamıştır (t=0.652, p> 0.05). Ancak, Çevre Sağlığı öğrencilerinin, çevreci davranışlar göstermek konusunda daha duyarlı oldukları, çevreyi koruyan davranış kalıplarını daha fazla uyguladıkları, istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir şekilde ortaya konmuştur (t=2.039, p< 0.05). Yapılan çalışmada, cinsiyetin, çevre bilgisi ve çevreci davranışlar üzerinde etkili bir faktör olmadığı ortaya çıkmış, cinsiyetler arasında anlamlı bir fark bulunmamıştır. Sonuç olarak, öğrencilere neden çevreyi korumak gerektiği ve çevre sorunlarının önemi yeterince kavratıldığmda, pozitif davranışlar sergileyebilmektedirler. Dolayısıyla, eğitimin her boyutunda, "çevre eğitimi" alanına özel bir önem verilmelidir.

Çevre Eğitiminin Çevreye Duyarlı Davranışlar Üzerindeki Etkisi

The main purpose of this study is to measure the environmental knowledge and behaviors of university students who are subjected to environmental courses during their education and to check if there exists a relationship between those two variables namely, environmental knowledge and behavior. For this purpose, a questionnaire with two parts; part one, for the measurement of environmental knowledge and part two, for the measurement of environmental behaviors was applied to Gazi University, Vocational School of Health Services, Environmental Health Program students who are subjected to environmental courses during their training and to Ankara University, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Social Sciences Education students as a control group who are not given any environmental lecture. The interpretation of results indicated that there is no statistically important difference among students (t=0.652, p>0.05) in terms of environmental knowledge. However, environmental behaviors of 'Environmental Health Program' students differs (t=2.039, p< 0.05) from the 'Social Science Education' students. Students who had taken environmental lectures are found behaving more environmentally way (mean 1.300) than the others (mean 1.178). Additionally, it is found that gender did not differ significantly from each other in environmental knowledge (t=1.290, p>0.05) Therefore a specificimportance should be given to 'environmental education' in schools to promote environmentally responsible individuals.

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