An Interdisciplinary Approach to Earthquake Awareness of Turkish Middle School Students

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Year-Number: 2022-Volume 14, Issue 1
Yayımlanma Tarihi: 2022-02-15 22:18:55.0
Language : English
Konu : Mathematics and Science Education
Number of pages: 91-103
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Abstract

Project based learning (PBL) is believed to be a useful strategy to support students’ achievement, attidudes and awareness. The studies have revealed that this effective tool has an important role on performance of students. This is a qualitative study on a project competition regarding the Turkish students’ PBL practices to investigate earthquake awareness. The competition has been implementing by The Scientific and Technological Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). Data from 130 projects described in project catalogues were analyzed with content analysis technique. The results show that the projects have made for secure and healty life after or in case of earthquake to a large scale though soil, waves, vibration, plate tectonics and seismic zone which have important roles on such event are being emphasized in those student practices to some degree. It is concluded that since the students have some troubles in learning micro and macro universe, they must have used daily life topics in their PBL practices. They made for their projects to prepare public, fellows, buildings and environment to earthquake disaster. They preferred concrete topics than predominantly abstract ones in such geographical event to a large extend. As far as earthquake is an interdisciplinary topic, the students’ projects need to have an integrative approaches to realize their earthquake awareness. As earthquake education has some interdisciplinary features with its concrete and predominantly abstract context practiced by PBL projects in a competitive way, the teachers need to focus on such content for improving the quality of earthquake awareness.

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