Elementary school students' water awareness

Abstract

Environmental problems grow gradually and their effects are felt in various ways such as shortage of potable water. Among the various solutions offered to solve these problems, there is one standing which has the potential of encapsulating all the solutions in, that is "water education". Therefore, the aim of this study is to present the results of a project conducted through a Water School Workshop Study related to students. The 30 students from 6th, 7th and 8th grade levels who were given water education for 25 lecture hours in totally 5 days by using originally developed instructional materials participated in the study. The data were gathered through qualitative and quantitative instruments before and just after the Water School. The results showed that the Water School is generally effective on the students' conception about water, attitudes toward water usage, awareness of environment and general opinions related to the water. Moreover, the students' answers for quantitative data collection tools were determined to be significantly permanent compared with the answers to the qualitative data collection tools even 3 months after the Water School. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.