Perception of Elementary Students in Word Association and Drawing Activities on 'Energy' and 'Climate Change'

The purpose of this study is to understand elementary students perceptions of ‘energy’ and ‘climate change’ through drawing activities and word association activities. For this study, 33 6 graders were asked to write nine words associated with the concepts of ‘energy’ and ‘climate change’ and to draw the pictures on present and future. The results of the study are as follows; First, the word that most elementary students were reminded about by the concept of energy was ‘electricity’, followed by ‘sun’, ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘power plant’, ‘renewable’. Second, elementary school students were most reminiscent of the term ‘climate change’ as ‘global warming’ followed by ‘ozone layer’, ‘polar bear’, ‘carbon dioxide’, ‘atom’. Third, the responses of students in the energy-related picture show that the present situation is negative but the future situation is positive. Fourth, the results of the students’ responses to the climate change picture show that both the current situation and the future situation are negative.