AN ACTIVITY TO INCREASE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT AWARENESS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER CANDIDATES: EDUCATIONAL DRAMA

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of educational drama practices on the ecological footprint awareness of the primary school teachers. In this research, pre-post test single-group quasi-experimental design was used and Ecological Footprint Scale was applied as pre-test and post-test to measure the ecological footprint awareness of primary teacher candidates before and after educational drama practices. Primary school teacher candidates conducted research on environmental issues for ten weeks, wrote a scenario about these issues, staged and watched their scenario. As a result of the study, it was found that the difference between the average scores of the ecological footprint awareness before and after the educational drama studies and the difference between the mean scores of all sub-dimensions were statistically significant (p<0.05). The difference between the average scores is calculated as a big effect[ή2] and it was interpreted that educational drama studies increased the ecological footprint awareness of primary school teacher candidates with a great effect and their sub-dimensions with a medium and large effect. The learner center, which can be used in educational processes, can be effective in providing different activities, information and can enable the acquisition of different behavior and habits with active participation.