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The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of school type (private and public) and gender on sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth grade students' attitudes toward the environment. A total of 1497 students (n = 765 girls; n = 715 boys; and n = 17 gender not provided) attending public (n = 603) and private schools (n = 892) located in Ankara participated in the study. A 45-item Likerttype questionnaire consisting of four dimensions, namely, awareness of environmental problems, national environmental problems, solutions to the problems and awareness of individual responsibility, was used to measure students' environmental attitudes. A two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine the effect of school type and gender on four dimensions of the environmental attitude questionnaire. Results showed that school type and gender had a significant effect on the collective dependent variables. Univariate ANOVAs indicated that mean scores on each dimension of the questionnaire were significantly different for students in public and private schools. Moreover, there was statistically significant mean difference between boys and girls with respect to scores on each dimension of the questionnaire. It is concluded as a result of the study that, although there are differences between categories of individuals, there is a widespread support for conservation of the environment among young people living in Ankara/ Turkey.

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The purpose of this study is to explore pre-service science teachers' (PST) argumentation in the context of inquiry-oriented laboratory work. Specifically, this study investigated the kinds of argumentation schemes PSTs use as they perform inquiry-oriented laboratory tasks, and how argumentation schemes generated by PSTs vary by tasks as well as by experimentation and critical discussion sessions. The participants in this study were 35 pre-service elementary teachers, who will teach middle school science from 6 th through 8 th grade students after graduation. In this study, participants were engaged in six inquiry-oriented laboratory tasks. The performance of laboratory tasks consisted of two stages. Through the experimentation stage, PSTs planned and developed their own hypotheses, carried out an experiment and collected data, and processed their data to verify their hypotheses. Through the critical discussion stage, one of the research groups presented their hypotheses, methods, and results orally to the v other research groups. Each presentation was followed by a class discussion of weak and strong aspects of the experimentation. The data of this study were collected through video-and audio-recording. The data were the transcribed from video-and audio-recordings of the PSTs' discourse during the performance of the laboratory tasks. For the analysis of PSTs' discourse predetermined argumentation schemes by Walton (1996) were employed. The results illustrated that PSTs applied varied premises rather than only observations or reliable sources, to ground their claims or to argue for a case or an action. The interpretation of the frequency data and the kind of the most frequent argumentation schemes can be seen as a positive indication that the inquiry-oriented laboratory tasks that were employed in this study are effective toward promoting presumptive reasoning discourse. Another result of this study, which is worthy of notice is the construction and evaluation of scientific knowledge claims that resulted in different number and kinds of arguments. Results of this study suggest the following implications for improving science education. First, designing inquiry-oriented laboratory environments, which are enriched with critical discussion, provides discourse opportunities that can support argumentation. Second, both the number of arguments and the use of various scientific argumentation schemes can be enhanced by specific task structures. Third, "argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning" is a promising analysis framework to reveal the argumentation patterns in scientific settings. Last, pre-service teachers can be encouraged to support and promote argumentation in their future science classrooms if they engage in argumentation integrated instructional strategies.

This study investigated elementary school students' environmental knowledge and attitudes, the effects of sociodemographic variables on environmental knowledge and attitudes, and how self-reported environmentally friendly behaviour is related to environmental knowledge, behavioural intentions, environmental affects, and the students' locus of control. Data were gathered by administration of the Children's Environmental Attitudes and Knowledge Scale and Locus of Control scale to 1140 students from 18 randomly selected elementary schools located in urban areas of Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Descriptive results indicated low levels of knowledge, but favourable attitudes toward the environment. The three-way ANOVA provided a significant main effect on students' environmental knowledge of education level of fathers. The sex difference regarding students' attitudes toward the environment was statistically significant in favour of girls. In addition, multiple regression analysis results showed that behavioural intentions, environmental affects, and locus of control, could be accounted as significant predictors of self-reported environmentally friendly behaviour. On the other hand, the present study showed that elementary school students' behaviours toward the environment were independent from their knowledge of environmental issues.