Primary School 4th Grade Students to Gain Responsibility for Natural Environment with Alternative Activities

Abstract

Natural resources are consumed unconsciously in parallel with rapid industrialization and population growth in the world. Therefore, environmental education has an important role in the sustainability of a livable and sustainable environment. In order to increase the sensitivity of children to the environment, the love of nature should be internalized. Social Studies course aims that children, who are adults of the future in the specific aims of the course, are trained as nature sensitive individuals who are aware of the limitations of natural resources and who try to protect natural resources and have a sustainable environmental understanding. Due to this importance of the course, “sensitivity to natural environment” was determined as the subject of the study. The aim of this study is to help student attain the learning outcomes in the unit “People, Places and Environments” unit of the syllabus of the Primary School 4th Grade Social Studies course with alternative activities related to the topic of sensitivity to the natural environment. Action research method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The study group consisted of 19 primary school 4th grade students in the second semester of 2017-2018 academic year in Kastamonu city center. In this research, firstly, the students were asked to determine their thoughts by asking an open-ended question about “love of nature” and “sensitivity to natural environment”. In this study, photographic analysis, resolver story, song, puzzle and tree planting activities developed by the researchers in a systematic program, were applied in a 5 week-period. At the end of the process, the open-ended interview form prepared by the researchers was applied to the students. The data were analyzed by using content analysis method. It was concluded that the use of alternative activities in environmental issues is effective in increasing students' sensitivity to the natural environment.