Activities and opinions of science teacher candidates on ecological citizenship

Abstract

Teachers undertake important tasks regarding awareness of the environment and raising ecological citizens. In particular, science courses include ecological issues, and science teachers are more responsible for being practitioners of these courses. The purpose of this study is to determine pre-service science teachers' views on ecological citizenship, rights of nature, ecological constitution, participation, responsibility, sustainability, rights and justice, which are the features of ecological citizenship. In line with this purpose, the study uses phenomenological design, which is a qualitative research method. The study group of the research is composed of 21 science teacher candidates, except for senior year students, attending the education faculty of a state university in a large city in the Black Sea region in 2020-2021 academic year. Descriptive analysis method was used in the analysis of the interviews. According to the findings of the study, science teacher candidates thought individuals must first be aware of nature rights and their responsibilities to nature in order to qualify as ecological citizens. It was found that teachers thought all the creatures living in nature, just like humans, have the right to live. They also thought that the protection of nature should be secured by certain laws and rules. In this respect, environmental education programs applied from pre-school to university are recommended to be reexamined in terms of ecological citizenship.