Exploring fifth–grade Turkish children’s solutions and future plans for environmental pollution through their drawings

A total of 40 5th graders (25 girls and 15 boys, aged 10-11 years) completed drawings of their solutions and future plans for environmental pollution. Drawings were collected from a classroom at a public school in the province of Izmir. At the time of data collection, the Turkish science curriculum for primary schools was going through a transition phase. As a result, before 5th grade, the participants had been taught the Science and Technology Curriculum for primary schools introduced in the 2004-2005 academic year. However, in 5th grade, they began to be taught the science curriculum for primary schools introduced in 2013. Before 5th grade, the participants were expected to:

know what light pollution is;
list the negative impacts of light pollution on wildlife and observing celestial bodies;
present the findings of their research on light pollution;
explain the measures that can be taken to reduce light pollution;
suggest their own solutions for the problem of light pollution;
realize that irregular and loud sounds cause noise pollution;
identify the areas of high noise pollution intensity through observation;
design and present a model representing noise pollution intensity in different areas through observation;
explain the negative impacts of noise pollution on human health and the environment;
research the measures that can be taken to reduce noise pollution in their environment;
identify certain materials and personal actions that help reduce noise pollution;
research and present the measures that can be taken to prevent air, land and water pollution;
become aware of the forms of pollution in their environment, and list the pollutants causing them;
develop simple methods in order to clean the environment; and
discuss the damage caused to the human health and the environment due to improper battery disposal.

In the 2013 science curriculum for primary schools, children are expected to suggest ways to solve the environmental problems caused by human activities. As part of this task, each child in this study was asked to produce a drawing of his/her solutions and future plans for environmental pollution on a piece of A4 paper. They were free to choose the form(s) of environmental pollution on which they would like to focus, and were allowed to annotate their drawings. The reason for selecting this school and classroom was because, by the time of investigation, some of my science trainee teachers were doing their school practice in this classroom, and the teacher of the classroom agreed to participate in this study.