Raising the awareness on chemicals in children: Developing and piloting of a teaching material

There is a need for raising the awareness of safe usage of chemicals in children due to the lack of information on this issue. For this purpose a project was developed titled as of "Raising awareness of children about harmful effects of indoor and outdoor chemicals" in the frame of European Union Lifelong Learning program Leonardo da Vinci (LDV) Partnership Projects. For this project, an interdisciplinary team was formed from eight institutions in three countries (Turkey, Poland and Sweden). The titles of the education material were composed of basic concepts, medicines at home, household cleaners, pesticides, plastics, environmental tobacco smoke and carbonmonoxide. A DVD and teachers' manual were prepared including these subjects. The present study present information provided by the post test with both two experimental and two control groups after demonstration of the educational material (DVD) to 4th and 5th grade students aged between nearly 10 and 12. Results of the post test showed that students in the experimental group gave more correct answers than controls. The present educational material is expected to become a supplementary material for Science and Technology course and to contribute children's to become more conscious individuals. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]