Does Outdoor Education Make Any Difference in Environmental Literacy of Pre-Service Classroom Teachers?

The aim of this research is to determine the effects of various teaching methods and activities, which are used in environmental education lessons, on the environmental literacy level of classroom pre-service teachers. This study was carried out including the classroom pre-service teachers, who took the environmental education course in the academic year of 2012-2013. In this study, an experimental design was used. The Environmental Literacy Scale and the Evaluation of the Environmental Education Outcome Scale, which was developed by the researchers, were utilized as data collection instruments. The implementations were carried out throughout the semester. During the semester, traditional teaching methods (lecture type) were used in the control group, while teaching methods in which the pre-service teachers were active in the outdoor and indoor were used in the experimental group. Regarding the quantitative data, descriptive analysis, paired-samples t-test, Independent Samples T-Test analysis were utilized. Content analysis was used for the analysis of the data obtained from the open-ended questions. The findings showed that there was a statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental group with respect to the "attitudes", "uses," and "concern" dimensions of the environmental literacy. When the pre-test and post-test results of the control group were compared within the group, no any significant difference was found. Yet, a significant difference in the dimensions of "attitudes" and "uses" was found when the pre-test and the post-test results were compared within the experimental group. The classroom pre-service teachers in the control group gave very positive feedback on the issues of "the outcomes they obtained from the environmental education course", "teaching topics related to environmental education when become teachers," and "environmental problems." Richer codes and higher frequencies were obtained from the experimental group on these categories.