Pre-service Teachers’ Views on the Environmental Education, Human Brain and Genetics, Health and Sexual Education

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to present pre-service teachers' views on the ecology and environmental education, human brain and genetics, health and sexual education. The presented paper in here is a follow-up study of European Commission supported project titled Biohead-Citizen which included 26 partners. The Biohead-Citizen project aims to understand how Biology, Health and Environmental Education can promote a better citizenship, including their affective and social dimensions, analyzing possible differences in 26 countries and associating them to controlled parameters, (e.g. social context, religion, gender). The questionnaire developed in the context of Biohead-Citizen project was used as main data collection tool in the study. A pilot study was conducted for reliability issues, implementing the questionnaire to 133 pre-service science teachers. The final version of translated questionnaire was administered to the 210 pre-service teachers who are at the last grade of their education at the faculty of education in Turkey. The findings of this study showed that pre-service teachers particularly give importance to items in the health and sexual education: "families should be responsible for the health education"; "the health education at the school improves students' behavior", "schools have to take into account public health policies". Regarding human brain and genetics, the participants quite agree that "women can be as intelligent as men"; "identical twins have identical immune responses to transplants from one other person" and they strongly disagree that "ethnics groups are genetically different and that is why some are superior to others". They also indicated their ecology and environmental education views and most of them strongly agree that "we must aside to protect endangered species", "the main goal of environmental education in school should be developing behavior that is respectful". In the study, there are no significant differences in the mean scores for males and females, and according to the participants' childhood living place, father-mother education level, and their branches. The further findings and conclusions are presented with literature reviews.

Young people’s expressed needs for Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Ecuadorian schools

“…In terms of gender, our findings are in line with earlier studies reporting non-significant gender differences in student teachers willingness to provide sexual health at school (Ramírez, 2000;Gunay, Cavas, & Hamurcu, 2015). Though, on the other hand, there is evidence supporting the notion that teachers´ gender plays a role in sexuality education prospective integration.…”

La formación en educación para la salud del alumnado universitario del grado de educación infantil en España

“…One of the main obstacles in the integration of the EpS in the educational centers is the low level of faculty training 20 . Several studies have shown the need to improve faculty training in health [21][22][23][24][25] , identifying how this situation limits and even prevents the ideal development of protocols designed to safeguard the well-being of students 18,26 . Professors should be knowledgeable of fundamental health aspects and the good use of the existing health services 27 and should add specific EpS competences to their necessary teaching skills.…”

Formación del profesor de primaria en educación para la salud

“…Autores como Gunay et al (2015) señalan que los temas sobre salud es importante abordarlos desde edades tempranas, tanto dentro de la familia como desde el colegio. De esta forma, la escuela constituye uno de los principales escenarios educativos para desarrollar actividades saludables (Leger, 2001, Gutiérrez, 2003, Perea Quesada, 2001, donde se trabaja con alumnos que están en período de formación física, psíquica y social, y que poseen una gran capacidad para el aprendizaje y la asimilación de hábitos, y que por ende está abierta a la familia y a la comunidad.…”