Environmental Knowledge and Attitudes Among a Cohort of Pre-service Primary School Teachers in Fiji

Abstract

Fiji is developing rapidly, and with an emerging middle class, more of its population are adopting a western lifestyle with its associate patterns of high consumption. This is inevitably having an impact on the country's environment with increased waste production and energy use, and consequently there is a need for effective environmental education to help alleviate these problems. Primary teachers will play a pivotal role in educating children for and about the environment in the coming years. This study reports the findings of a survey of pre-service primary teachers' knowledge and attitudes to the environment locally and globally. The findings indicate that although the majority of teachers interviewed had adopted an ‘environmental paradigm’ insofar as they wanted to protect the environment, many did not feel that it was necessary to modify their lifestyles in order to do so. The findings suggest that this might be addressed through improved professional development in environmental education and this would be timely given current reforms taking place in the primary sector in Fiji with the introduction of new curricula and assessment regimes.