Out-of-School Learning to Achieve the Spatial Perception Skills: A Case Study

Cognitive description and comprehension of the structure, existence and relations of a space and its reflection and restructuring in the mind of a space is called spatial perception. Individuals' perceptions of space change according to their environmental awareness, knowledge and impressions. The ability of individuals to perceive their surroundings, adapt to the places they are in and regulate their lives better depends on the sophistication of their perceptions of space. Spatial skills such as spatial representation, spatial representation, spatial analysis, and spatial evaluation need to be improved. In order to develop the spatial skills. The fact that the features of the space give an idea about how that space can be perceived and the interaction of the individual with the space, it emphasizes out-of-school learning in order to develop of the spatial perception skills. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the effects of the activities of a social studies education project carried out within the scope of TUBITAK 4004 Nature Education and Science Schools Support Program on the perception of spatial skills space and the use of out-of-school spaces in teaching this skill. The study was conducted with a case study, one of the qualitative research types. The study group consisted of 30 prospective teachers selected by criterion sampling. The data obtained by open-ended questionnaire and document analysis were evaluated by content analysis. According to the findings obtained in the study, it shows that the applied activities are effective in teaching the spatial skills and the perception of space. Pre-service teachers stated that they can realize the spaces, objects and assets around them with the activities carried out outside the school and they develop their spatial skills by applying them.