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The Importance of Practical Training Activities in Raising Environmental Awareness

Zeynep Öztoprak,Sebahat Doğan

  • Zeynep Öztoprak: TC Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı
  • Sebahat Doğan: Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı Şükriye Onsun İlkokulu
  •  Year : 2025
  •  Vol : 2
  •  Issue : 2
  •  Page : 191-207
This study is based on the “Environmental Detectives” eTwinning project, conducted with 8 teachers and 138 primary school students from Turkey, Romania, Poland, Spain, Georgia, and Greece. The project aims to enhance students’ awareness of environmental issues and foster environmentally conscious, responsible, inquisitive, and sustainability-minded individuals. To this end, hands-on, experience- based, and collaborative activities were conducted, focusing on energy and water conservation, forest protection, recycling, conscious use of natural resources, waste management, and environmental cleanliness. Students identified environmental problems in their daily lives, discussed cause-and-effect relationships, created concept maps, and developed creative solutions. They also participated in online meetings with peers from partner countries, collaboratively producing e-books, videos, posters, digital presentations, virtual exhibitions, and shared digital products to raise environmental awareness. These activities significantly enhanced students’ creativity, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, empathy, and digital literacy skills. Ten activities were designed in alignment with Turkish curriculum outcomes, adopting an interdisciplinary, constructivist approach integrated into classroom learning. Three activities were implemented through international collaboration, producing shared outputs, intercultural learning opportunities, and collective experiences. The research was structured as a qualitative case study. Data were collected from student products, activity reports, observations, feedback, teacher interviews, and online meeting records, and analyzed through content analysis. Findings revealed notable improvements in students’ observation, research, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills. Moreover, students demonstrated increased environmental awareness, empathy, and a stronger sense of responsibility toward nature. At the conclusion, all participants received National and European Quality Labels in recognition of the project’s innovative approach, pedagogical value, cultural contribution, and sustainable impact
Cite this Article As : Öztoprak, Z, & Doğan, S. (2025). Çevre bilinci kazandırmada uygulamalı eğitim etkinliklerinin önemi. UPUES Journal, 2(2), 191-207.

Conflict of interest : The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

This article is published under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
Upues Journal
2025, Vol2, Issue2
E-ISSN: 3108-4877
Received : , Accepted : , Published Online :

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