The paper deals with a pilot study that has been conducted by the author. It is a part of the study of the peculiarities of the civil-legal aspect of students environmental consciousness. Theoretical prerequisites for studying ecological consciousness, civil law foundations of social interaction and peculiarities of civil identity have been determined. The study has been conducted at Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education with a help of a sociological survey using online questionnaires and the functionality of Google Forms. 269 students from various fields of training have taken part in this survey. The results provided an opportunity to assess the starting positions of the study and draw some conclusions about respondents moods and assessments regarding questions of interest. In general, the results obtained indicate a negative assessment of the environmental situation in the country, as well as in the world, the actions of the State to preserve environmental balance are not sufficiently assessed. The individual activity of students aimed at maintaining an ecological lifestyle is characteristic of almost half of respondents, while the knowledge about the main international environmental agreements and the largest natural-scientific concepts of the environment is also not familiar to more than half of respondents. The obtained results made it possible to determine the further direction of research with the involvement of specialists in the field of sociology, social studies, ecology, pedagogy and psychology in solving the set tasks.