Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">The present study examined the levels of four environmental dimensions; environmental awareness, attitudes towards recovery, attitudes towards recycling and environmental behavior among grade 12 students in Sri Lanka. A standard scale that has four environmental dimensions and personal information was used. Effects of gender, study stream, residential area and family income of students on each of the four environmental dimensions were determined by conducting Levene’s test, Kruskal Wallis H test, Dunnet’sT3 test and Mann Whiteny U test using SPSS for Windows version 26. Correlation analysis was run to reveal the associations among the four environmental dimensions. A sample of 1006 grade 12 students participated in the study. Students confirmed a moderate level of awareness, attitudes and behavior towards the environment. Girls’ levels in terms of all four dimensions were significantly higher than those of boys. The result strongly confirmed the impact of study stream on environmental awareness, attitudes and behavior of students. Awareness, attitudes and behavior towards environment of the rural students were at the highest level. However, no significant differences were observed among students from different family income groups. The observed weak correlation between environmental awareness and behavior confirmed that knowledge has not effectively transformed into environmental responsible behavior. Moreover, strong association could be observed between attitudes towards recycling and environmentally responsible behavior of the students. Observed positive correlations among four environmental dimensions indicate that students’ perceived environmental awareness and attitudes positively influence their responsible environmental behavior. These results emphasize the importance of incorporating essential environmental concepts and learning teaching strategies into the existing school curriculum to ensure students’ environmentally responsible behavior. Based on the present findings, suggestions were made for curriculum developers and educators to upgrade the existing curriculum.</p>
Highlights
People from all corners of the world are seeking for a sustainable living space within the limits of gifted natural resources, by rearranging their ways and means of interacting with the planet earth
The present study examined the levels of four environmental dimensions; environmental awareness, attitudes towards recovery, attitudes towards recycling and environmental behavior among grade 12 students in Sri Lanka
According to the above categorization (Table 2) students confirmed a moderate level of AB, environmental awareness (EA), AR1, AR2 and environmental consciousness and behavior (EB)
Summary
People from all corners of the world are seeking for a sustainable living space within the limits of gifted natural resources, by rearranging their ways and means of interacting with the planet earth. In order to develop a proper interaction behavior, human being has always tried to recognize the secrets and strengths of the environment. Environmental education has been recognized as one of the main solutions to overcome ever challenging global environmental issues. Research studies conducted in the environmental education arena have been revealed that education has a great impact on the behavior of young people towards the environment (Cottrell, 2003; Frisk & Larson, 2011). Development of students’ responsible action towards the environment would be one of the main objectives of an effective and efficient education system of any country. Since human behavior and attitudes are implicated in a number of environmental problems, environmental conservation actions are essential for the sustainable development. The present young generation should be made aware of their responsibilities regarding the sustainable usage of currently available
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