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The Effect of Nature Education Activities on Students' Academic Achievement, Social Skills, and Views on Scientific Knowledge

2022    Ozenoglu, Hatice; Aladag, Elif; Arikan, Alaattin

This research aimed to examine the effect of nature education activities on students' achievement in science and social studies, their social skills, and their views on scientific knowledge. It also aimed to define the extracurricular learning activities designed within the scope of the research in detail and to set an example for teachers, students, and researchers. The research was carried out in August 2020 with 36 seventh grade students in Aydin within the scope of a project supported by TUBITAK 4004 Nature Education and Science Schools Funding Programmes. It used a one-group pretest-posttest pre-experimental design, which is a quantitative research design method. The data were collected using the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY), the Views about Scientific Knowledge Scale, and an achievement test developed by the researchers. The data were analysed using a t-test and the Mann-Whitney U test. The analysis results showed that the nature education activities conducted within the scope of the research were effective in students' achievement, social skills, and views on scientific knowledge. In line with the findings, it is recommended that more time should be devoted to extracurricular learning activities and curricula should be revised accordingly.