Pre-service teachers’ reflections of their concerns about social, environmental and global problems via drawing cartoons

The present study aimed to determine the social, environmental, and global problems that students attending the faculty of education considered important and their views and observations on these problems with cartoons. An art-based research approach, which has been significant in qualitative research tradition, was adopted in the present study. The study findings showed that the students were affected by the current events and media reports based on their statements on the issues that they considered important. Furthermore, cartoons drawn by students on the problem that they considered the most important allowed them to demonstrate their creative and critical thinking, decision making, perception, evaluation, environmental literacy, empathy, observation and visual literacy skills, and were effective on the development of these skills. Furthermore, the present study demonstrated that when the students are motivated on a topic and given sufficient freedom, they could reflect their creative and critical thinking skills in their cartoons