Application of animation in teaching environmental concepts to primary school students of Isfahan city

A medium is required to convey a message, and animation is one of the best ways in this regard, especially for children. In Iran, the capacity of animation has been less used for the environmental education. The current study was conducted to investigate the effect of animation  on educating students in terms of the types of waste, duration of the waste decomposition and its impact on the environment. The research population included 70 primary school second grade male students in Isfahan city in the academic year of 2018-2019. The students were divided into treatment and control groups, so  that the treatment group received training using animation and the control group only received regular school instruction. After completing the training cycle, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed between both groups. The reliability of this questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach's alpha (α = 0.89). The results showed that there was a significant difference (p <0.001) between the treatment group  (mean = 11.73) and control group (mean = 5.61). Findings indicated that after the training course using animation, knowledge, attitude and behaviors of students towards the environment were significantly increased. Thus, the impact of animation on the waste management training was positive and significant, showing that the effectiveness of environmental education could be increased using animation.