TARIH KULTUR VE SANAT ARASTIRMALARI DERGISI-JOURNAL OF HISTORY CULTURE AND ART RESEARCH, vol.6, no.6, pp.482-491, 2017 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
Natural disaster is defined as suddenly developing natural or human phenomena that harm human life and natural order. Many natural disasters have occurred in Turkey throughout history, resulting in serious loss of life and property. Although people can not prevent natural disasters, however, they can take various measures to reduce the damages. In order to reduce the indemnities caused by natural disasters, Turkey has taken many precautionary measures especially after 1999 Marmara earthquake. These steps are mostly focused on the formation of disasters, ways to prevent disasters, and legal regulations. This research was conducted to determine the level of understanding of the concept of disaster and disaster education by 8th grade students of middle school. The study sample consists of 8th grade students from Dort Eylul middle school of Simav district, Kutahya province. The research was carried out with 28 middle school students during academic year of 2014-2015. A semi-structured questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions, developed by researchers, was applied as data collection tool. The data of the study were analyzed using qualitative research techniques. Results show that students' first perception about the word disaster is earthquake disaster, tsunami disaster. Therefore, environmental conditions of an area are found affecting the perception. Besides, variable of gender is also not found affecting the results. However, increase in income level and educational level of parents result difference in answers.