The Future of Education

Environmental deterioration has reached a critical point in recent years all over the world.  Children with their potential in resolution of environmental issues in future are required to be well equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge, values and attitudes toward the environment and sustainability. Thus, the present study aimed to assess (1) Turkish middle school students’ environmentally responsible behaviors, connections with nature (nature relatedness), and motive concerns and (2) the power of the constructs namely environmental motive concerns and nature relatedness in predicting middle school students’ environmentally responsible behaviors. For this specified purpose, a survey covering Nature Relatedness Scale (Nisbet, Zelenski & Murphy, 2009), Environmental Motive Concerns Scale (Schultz, 2001), and Children’s Responsible Environmental Behavior Scale (Erdogan et al. 2012)  was adminitered to 1774 seventh and eighth grade public school students in north part of Turkey. Regarding the gender distribution, 820 students (46.2%) were female while 824 students (46.4%) were male and 130 students (7.4%) did not label their gender. The results of descriptive statistics indicated that these students reflected an external, nature-related worldview. Regarding their behaviors, it was revealed that the middle school students frequently engaged in some actions linked to physical and economic contribution to the environmental quality. However, these students did not demonstrate some actions on political commitment although they were very concerned about the environmental issues. Examining the predictors of children’s responsible environmental behaviors, the linear combination of the attributes reflecting nature relatedness, and biospheric and altruistic motive concerns was significantly conributed to explain such kind of behaviors. The findings of the present study provided practical tips for environmental and sustainability educators in that children could get in touch with nature and have some opportunities to appreciate value of being in nature.