The National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), California, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 17 - 21 Nisan 2009, ss.197
Environmental education is important for increasing people’s awareness towards environmental problems. Remediation of the environmental problems are mostly related to reasoning, behaviors and attitudes of the people, which is also called environmental literacy of
people.This study reports the environmental literacy, attitude ,behavior, concern and knowledge of the 560 in a preservice teachers (PTs)
in a university. In this study the role of gender, environmental background and major in environmental attitude, concern, behavior, and
knowledge – environmental literacy- was explored. The instrument to be used for detecting PTs environmental literacy is the questionnaire, Environmental Literature Test, developed by National Environmental Education and Training Foundation (NEETF & Roper,
2005). Multivariate analysis of variance used to compare the gender, department and environmental background differences on dependent variables; environmental attitude, concern, behavior and knowledge. This study is unique in terms of three aspects. First; this study
investigated the effect of gender, major and environmental background on each dimensions of the environmental literacy in one study.
Second, this study was aimed to investigate these issues in a developing nonwestern country. Third the participants of this study were
preservice teachers who have responsibility of spreading environmental literacy through education.