THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY SERVICE PRACTICES COURSE IN IMPROVING ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS: THE EXAMPLE OF NIGDE UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Abstract

Today, it can be clearly seen with too many examples that environmental problems now have reached the proportions that threaten the future of mankind. Changing climate conditions, melting glaciers, endangered species and deforestation can be listed as just a few of these examples. The human-induced factors have great role in the formation of this pessimistic picture. The unconscious and wrong practices against environmental values bring about many problems. The way to solve these problems depends on the awareness of society. Here, a big responsibility is on the teachers' shoulders. Because the teachers will educate a generation filled with a sense of responsibility towards the environment and society. However, teachers themselves should carry the sense of responsibility before passing it on to their students. With the community service practices course, the provision of this responsibility to the prospective teachers is aimed at. Within the framework of this study which aims at revealing the importance of the community service practices course in improving environmental awareness, the various projects done by the prospective teachers of Nigde University, Faculty of Education, Primary Education Department will be dealt with.

Keywords

• Environmental Problems
• Environmental Awareness
• Responsibility
• Teachers