Abstract:

Purpose: This research study aims to analyze the effects of teaching the subject of domestic waste and recycling, which is included in the Science course curriculum, in informal learning environments on secondary school students’ learning. Design/Methodology/Approach: In the research, the phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research designs, is used. The phenomenology design focuses on a person's first-order experiences about a phenomenon. And, it aims to have in-depth information about the phenomenon. The study group of the investigation consists of 14 secondary school students receiving education at a public school in Aksaray, during the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. The trip evaluation form and the semi-structured interview questions developed by the researcher as data collection tools are used as pre-test and posttest. The data acquired from the investigation were analyzed by content and descriptive analysis methods. Codes, categories, themes, and subthemes were built for the student’s answers. Findings: According to the results obtained from the study, the students observed that recycling is not a simple process that can be applied easily. The students remarked that the recycling facility trip creates awakening and awareness towards the environment and facilitates learning by walking through, seeing, and having fun. Highlights: Based on this study, it is recommended to arrange field trips in different disciplines to forthese trips enable students to gain interesting and catchy experiences.

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