Comparative Research of Ideas about Environmental Problems among Students in Different Age Groups

In recent years, environmental problems have been increasing rapidly around the world and affecting a wide range of environments. Many campaigns are carried out to raise awareness about environmental problems. This study aims to determine the ideas of students at different education levels about environmental problems and to compare these ideas with each other according to their fields. The survey model was used as the research method. The study group of the research consists of a total of 298 students: 75 at the 4th grade level of primary school, 90 at the 7th grade level of secondary school, 56 at the 11th grade level of high school, and 68 at the 3rd and 4th grade level of the university. The "Environmental Problems Opinion Survey", consisting of four open-ended questions, for which validity studies were conducted, was applied to the study group. The descriptive analysis method was used to analyze the data. Environmental pollution is seen as the most important environmental problem at all levels of education. While the answer to the most important cause of environmental problems is littering at the primary school level, it is shown that people act unconsciously on environmental issues at other levels of education. While the answer to the question about your most frequent behavior to prevent environmental problems was "I throw away the garbage" at the primary school, high school and university levels, the answer to the question "I throw the garbage away" was encountered at the secondary school level. Finally, it was suggested that awareness-raising activities be held at all education levels regarding the solution of environmental problems. Based on all these results, it has been observed that similar answers are encountered at all levels of education regarding environmental problems. Conducting more studies to increase students' awareness of environmental problems is among the recommendations of this study.