Traditional and Technological Methods for Raising Pre-school Children’s Awareness of Environmental Pollution for Sustainability

In the preschool period children develop rapidly in cognitive, social-emotional, physical, psycho-motor, language, and aesthetic areas. In this period, besides basic habits and skills, it is important for children to gain environmental awareness. Research shows that children are mostly affected by environmental problems. Yet, living in a clean and healthy world is a basic necessity for children. For this reason, it is possible that children can show a healthy development in all developmental areas and create a healthy future by establishing ecological balance through gaining environmental awareness during the preschool period for sustainability. Science and nature activities in the preschool education program play an important role in creating an environmental awareness of the children in this period as they include activities to acquire environmental awareness and provide important contributions to helping children gain environmental awareness for sustainability. The present study was conducted using a total of 80 students attending pre-school institutions in Konya province. The environmental pollution awareness scale was used as pre - test and post - test prepared by the researchers. The data was analyzed via the SPSS 18 program. As the post test scores of preschool students revealed, there was a significant difference for the experimental group with regard to environmental pollution awareness.