The present study conducted to establish effective environmental education investigated the influence of the project-based environmental education method supported with computer animations and of the traditional environmental education method on students' environmental literacy and on their self-efficacy beliefs in giving environmental education. For this purpose, an environmental literacy scale and a scale for self-efficacy perception of environmental education were applied to the participating students. In this experimental study, the pretest and posttest model was applied to the experimental and control groups. The study was carried out with 75 second-grade teacher candidates attending the department of Elementary School Teaching at Ziya Gokalp Education Faculty, Dicle University. The results of the statistical analyses revealed that the project-based instruction method supported with computer animations was more influential than the traditional method with respect to the participating students' environmental knowledge. Considering the mean scores, the results were found in favor of the experimental group students in terms of such dimensions of environmental literacy as environmental attitude, environmental perception and environmental behavior. The results also revealed that there was a difference between the students' mean scores regarding their self-efficacy perceptions of environmental education in favor of the experimental group. (Contains 10 tables.)