Abstract
For a successful transition towards sustainability, people need information and knowledge to understand the complex interconnectedness of social, natural, and social-natural systems. In order for people to be able to take a position on a number of environmental and social issues, and make decisions arising from these challenges, they need to use environmental literacy. We have come up with a tool to answer the question of how students access information about new environmental topics in the media, and how they transform it into environmental knowledge. Almost 400 students from seven Czech universities took part in a combined knowledge test and context questionnaire on microplastics (information based on the previous analysis of selected major web media). More than a third of students tested identified mass media as their main source of knowledge. Most students, however, already had some simple partial knowledge about the topic—the level of commonly discussed information that students remember and then just reproduce. Our statistically evaluated results may help teachers improve the quality of their instruction, curriculum, and subsequently students’ achievement and environmental civic competencies. The results present original findings complementing international research on the role of education and mass media in environmental sustainability knowledge.
Highlights
Human society faces a broad scale of more or less complex sustainability challenges
To answer the question “How do students transform the environmental information they receive through informal education into environmental knowledge?” we have developed an assessment tool combining a knowledge test and a context questionnaire
“water” or “water and water biota” were mentioned as the only environmental components containing microplastics in 70% of them; 60% of the analysed media didn’t provide any information about the size of microplastics; 27% reported an approximate size of microplastics, and 10% reported the exact size range; 40% of the analysed media didn’t provide any information about the health impacts; about 40% of the analysed media reported that no impact had been proven yet; but about 40% of these media used emotional discourse raising concerns about possible impacts on human health
Summary
Human society faces a broad scale of more or less complex sustainability challenges. People are obliged to take a position on a number of environmental as well as social issues and make decisions to cope with the problems arising from these challenges [1,2]. Environmental sustainability must take into consideration in mostly quantifiable terms the multiplicity of functions associated with the environment [3], while the concept of social development is ambiguous and defined by many characteristics observed in various areas of life, such as education, health, or societal affluence [4]. Not all these topics can be included in formal school curricula since new challenges keep constantly appearing. It is people’s knowledge concerning new environmental topics which they obtain information about through informal education that can show their real environmental literacy, as it is understood, for example, by Yacoubian or Coyle [1,6]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
