Address for correspondence: Dr. Serkan Timur, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University Egitim Fakultesi (17100) Canakkale, Turkey Telephone: +90 (286) 217 13 03 Fax: +90 (286) 212 07 51 E-mail: serkantimur42@gmail.com Determining Primary School Candidate Teachers’ Levels of Environmental Literacy Serkan Timur 1 , Betul Timur 2 and Sirin Yilmaz 3 1 Faculty of Education, Onsekiz Mart University, Canakkale, 17100, Turkey E-mail: serkantimur42@gmail.com 2 Faculty of Education, Onsekiz Mart University, Canakkale, 17100, Turkey E-mail: betultmr@gmail.com 3 Faculty of Education, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Bolu, 14000, Turkey E-mail: sirinyilmaz87@gmail.com KEYWORDS Environment. Literacy. Environmental Literacy. Candidate Teachers. Primary Education ABSTRACT The core of environmental literacy is to answer questions related to our world and our relationship with it, to search and to find answers to these questions, and the way we use these answers. Environmental literacy can be defined as obtaining information related to environment, educating yourself in subjects related to environment, and directing yourself to act on this issue. An individual’s attitude, affective disposition, cognitive skills towards environment and information about environment represents his environmental literacy. The aim of this study is to determine the environmental literacy levels of primary education candidate teachers who study at different grades. This study which uses a surveillance model includes 419 candidate teacher participants who study in the fall semester of 2012-2013 academic years. In this study, “Environmental Literacy Survey” which is prepared by Karatekin (2011) is used as data collection tool. This survey contains tests for affective disposition towards environment, environment behavior, environment knowledge, and environment cognitive skills. The results show that environmental literacy level of candidate teachers is moderate. It is found that candidate teachers’ affective disposition towards environment is high, information about environment, attitudes towards environment and environment cognitive skills are moderate. It is found that environmental literacy levels of candidate teachers are significantly different based on their department and whether they took a course related to environment or not. Environmental literacy levels do not change significantly based on gender of candidate teachers and education levels of their parents. In addition, it is found that environmental literacy of candidate teacher’s increase as levels of their curiosity about news and information about the environment increases. At the end of the study, in light of the obtained results, some suggestions are made for this study, researchers, and for future studies. INTRODUCTION There are various definitions of the concept of environment; however, environment can be defined as the place in which a living organism continue any type of social, biological, or cul- tural activities and meets its food, reproduction and accommodation needs. Environment is an umbrella term that includes all living and non- living things, and any physical, chemical, and biological factors that may affect those (Yildiz et al. 2008). The importance attached to the con- cept of environment has risen due to the envi- ronmental problems caused by especially Indus- trial Revolution, human-nature life affected, and the adverse effects of technology on environ- ment. The adverse effects on natural life reach- ing a level that threatens human life have led societies to raise concerns about the environ- ment, take some universal precautions, deliver declarations, and organize conferences. With the adverse effects observed not only locally but globally, Stockholm Conference was held in 1975, which was led by the United Nations. In this conference, the concept of environmental edu- cation emerged, and it was stressed that a spe- cial structure for environmental education, knowledge, skills, attitudes, behavior, and moti- vation were needed against the existing or likely environment problems (Venkataraman 2008; Yang 1993). One of the fundamental goals of environmental education is to raise individuals as environmentally literate. Literacy can be defined as the ability to read and write at a level in which communication can be ensured through written or printed symbols. © Kamla-Raj 2013 Anthropologist, 16(1-2): 57-67 (2013)