Investigating environmental attitudes and knowledge levels of teacher candidates in terms of different variables

The main purpose of this study is to investigate attitudes and knowledge levels of pre-service teachers in Social Sciences Education and Science and Technology Education department towards environment in terms of different variables. The data was gained from 323 pre-service teachers as 171 female and 152 male during 2012-2013 academic year. Environmental Attitude Scale and Environmental Knowledge Test developed by Uzun and Saglam (2006) were used in order to obtain data of the study. According to the results, teacher candidates are found to be very positive in terms of environmental thought, average level in terms of environmental literacy, and close to negative level in terms of their behaviors towards environment. Meaningful in average level relationship was detected between environmental knowledge and thought points. No significant difference was found statistically among teacher candidates’ environmental thought, behavior and knowledge points according to parents’ occupations, number of family members, socio-economic level, taking environmental course in secondary school and being a member of an environmental association.