An Analysis Upon Awareness, Knowledge and Attitude Among High School Students: a Case Study of Environmental Education

Environment is the sum total of all conditions and influences of the development of the life of human being and other organisms. It includes air, water, land dynamically the interrelationship that exists between these and human beings; other living creatures, plants, microorganisms and property. The word environment embraces the conditions or influences under which any organism or thing exists, lives or develops. All these may be placed into three divisions such as the set of physical conditions affecting and influencing the growth and development of an individual and community; the social and cultural conditions affecting the nature of an individual or community; and the surroundings of an inanimate object of intrinsic social value. Therefore, environment includes all the conditions, circumstances and influences surrounding and affecting an organism or a group of organisms (Trivedi and Raj, 2002). So, it may be stated that the concept of environment in its totality is a complex one, far ranging in its implications and challenging to our understanding. and local governments. These organizations have been demanding that schools should include EE in the curriculum of education. Many authors name the 1960s as the decade when EE started to develop in response to the world‟s growing awareness about environmental problems. Others believe that EE grew from the movement that existed from the beginning of the last century such as nature study, conservation and outdoor education (NACD, 2008). School environment as perceived by students has an advantage of characterizing the setting through the eyes of the actual participants. Students have a good advantage point to make judgements about classrooms because they have encountered several learning environments and have enough time in a class to form accurate impressions. One of the major aims of the education is the development of wholesome personality. Family is the socio-biological unit that exerts the greatest influence on the development and perpetuation of the individual’s behaviour. Next to home, school is the most important experience in the process of development of children. Both the environments, share influential place in child’s life and also contribute to the development of children. School is the second home to children. Teachers and parents have greater responsibility to foster mental health status of the students. At times in adverse conditions the school may also substitute the home situations and meets the emotional needs of those neglected in the home. Pupils perception, or attitude towards the school climate or environment has got considerable influence over their mental health. School atmosphere, includes favourable attitude towards school teacher, co-students, curriculum, methods of teaching, facilities available in the classroom and teacher-student interaction. In the school system, classroom is the most vital one for the transactional business going on between school and the society. The uniqueness of the classroom is due to the type of membership enjoyed by its members. The membership is not only mandatory but members are also more or less similar in age and achievement level. As a work group, the classroom group assembles together for the purpose of learning, which is held deliberately and in a planned manner. Naturally in that teaching learning situation, social interaction, the main theme behind the formation of any group, occurs compulsorily as well as accidentally. The process of social interaction implies that type of relationship between persons where the behaviour of one is the stimulus to the behaviour of other thus it becomes reciprocal. In the present era schools have a greater responsibility than even before to help the students to develop appropriate behaviour patterns? The school is the economic efficiency and civic responsibility. School experiences are designed to enhance growth and development, stimulate learning and to develop good behavioural patterns. The experience at school and school curriculum contribute to child’s feeling of personal worth, social competence, in winning acceptance from associates, satisfaction for the students to play and to accomplish purposeful tasks and develop interests and activities which would promote social values. Beside the increase of environmental concern, the ecological crisis dramatically continues to highlight influential factors on environmental protection such as environmental behaviour, awareness, knowledge and attitude; Social scientists have been measuring these components using several instruments. Many of these researchers believed that the knowledge and attitude are linked to each other where attitude is further connected to the behaviour. The assumption believes on "if people become more knowledgeable about the environment and its associated issues, they will, in turn, become more aware of the envir onment and its problems and, thus, be more motivated to act toward the environment in more responsible ways" , National Advisory Council oil Environmental Education had declared the valuable goals of Environmental Education. These values included to eliminate or minimize the destruction of envir onment and highlight the necessity of help to save the environment. This goes logically trough teaching of public to actively participate in environmental programs where finally the environmental education promote the wise use of natural resources for sustainability. Other researches showed the modem and specific characteristics of environmental education.

Environmental education helps to achieve awareness, knowledge, attitude and responsible behavior about environment. It has been defined and reviewed over the past twenty-five years. "It is generally agreed that environmental education is a process that creates awareness and understanding of the relationship between humans and tlieir many environments - natural, man-made. cultural and technological. Environmental education is concerned with knowledge, values and attitudes where has its responsibility on environmental behaviour" , As mentioned earlier there are some effective factors on environmental education components (awareness, knowledge and attitude) such as gender, age. political issues, parent's income and their educational level . Family income and levels of education's parents are known as a predicator factors on students AKA of the environment. The relationship between income and environmental behaviour was slightly lower than

students from lower income families , Furthermore, it is reported that income positively dependent to pro-environmental behaviour among public, which high income family has more participate hi pro-environmental behaviour. It is recommended that "concern for environmental quality is something luxury which can be indulged only after fulfilment of more basic needs (adequate food, shelter and economic security) are met". School environments as observed by understudies has leverage of describing the setting through the eyes of the true members. Learners have an exceptional point of interest focus to make judgements about classrooms on the grounds that they have experienced a few studying environments and have enough time in a class to shape correct impressions. The identified expositive expression is put forth here under. Concepts and definitions: The classroom is a studying environment where face to face time happen around instructors, people and studying takesplace. Studying environment ought to be constructivist in nature captivating learners in sense making or thinking. Dave (1965) described instructive environment or school nature "as the conditions, techniques and mental stimuli which influence the instructive fulfillment of the kid". School environment intimates "a measure of the value and amount of the cognitive, inventive and social underpin that has been ready to the subjects throughout their school existence in terms of educator-student communication". The classroom environment comprises of instructor back, educating material, assignment introduction, club, study propensities, association, sympathy, erosion, withdrawal and so on. Student’s perception of school learning environment: School environment may consist of both negative and positive characteristics, which affects the perception of the students. The classroom environment decides the perception of the classroom environment by the students. Students perception of school learning environment on academic achievement: Student perceptual limit additionally have an orientation on discernment of classroom environment coming about as downtrodden or exceptional. People' discernment of scholastic atmosphere in a school pushes their positive or a negative disposition towards their work at school. The aforementioned mentalities are bound to have an in number impact on their scholarly exhibition. Underprivileged disposition show themselves in undesirable conduct for example heedlessness and truancy which in turn influences their scholarly exhibition. conducted on the sample of 200 senior secondary students from four schools of Chandigarh and data was collected through descriptive survey method. The major findings were 1.Students of government and private schools exhibited comparable environmental awareness.2. Science students exhibited very high degree of environmental awareness than students opting for humanities.3. Male science students exhibited higher degree of environmental awareness than female science students but overall no significant difference was found between male and female students. From a more global perspective, gender differences in environmental attitude at higher education level have converged on females that are more sensitive toward environmental issues. For example, Fernandez- Manzanal et al. (2007) revealed that female students have higher scores than male students on the attitudes scale, especially in the factors of the need for conservation and environmentally favorable behavior.

Over the last 30 years, environmental education (EE) has been one of the main interests of school organizations, local communities, the private sector, and local governments. These organizations demand that schools include EE in the curriculum of K-12 education, but lack a plan to establish an environmental education curriculum that unifies an effective approach to teaching environmental education. Most programs, according to the North American Association of Environmental Educators (NAAEE) (Ballard & Pandya, 1990), rely on a series of environmental activities that can be incorporated into any course within an existing curriculum. Such approaches are called “an interdisciplinary infusion of environmental topics” and as add-ins or add-ons crowd an already full curriculum (Disinger, 1997). The Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education (UNESCO, 1978) recommended the primary categories of environmental education curriculum goals and objectives of: (a) awareness, (b) knowledge, (c) attitudes, (d) skills, and (e) participation. While these components have been cited in many documents, articles, and books in the last decade (Athman & Monroe, 2000; Callicott & Rocha, 1996; Day & Monroe, 2000; Gough, 1997; Palmer, 1998), not all authors agree upon the degree of importance of one objective over the other. However, there are reoccurring concepts that are mentioned frequently in the literature, specifically awareness, knowledge, and attitudes (Palmer, 1998). The difference in objectives and goals stated by different authors, groups, and organizations do not present a unified approach to environmental individuals to face changing and complex realities of environmental problems. According to Orr (1992), EE is often regarded as an extra in the curriculum, not as a core requirement. In his opinion, “all education is environmental education” (p.90). This statement may sound radical and biased; however it allows the opportunity to see education as relevant to the challenge of building a sustainable and environmentally conscience society. Such an approach to curriculum has been documented in the works of curricularists from the constructivist school of thought. As early as 1932, George Counts urged educators to utilize education as an agent of change in order to address social issues of his day. Ornstein and Hunkins (1998) drew a parallel of Counts’ position on the role of education in social reform to those of modern day proponents of social reconstructionist as society faces the challenges of “racial, ethnic and sexual inequality; poverty, unemployment and welfare; computers and technology; political oppression and war; environmental pollution; disease; hunger; AIDS; and depletion of the earth’s resources” (p.51). The role of the teacher, according to social constructivist curriculum planners is to serve as an agent of change and reform by making students aware of problems confronting humanity and by creating opportunities for students to solve such problems.

Environment is defined as a surrounding or growth of an individual. Environmental Awareness is concern towards environment or environmental problem. The environmental issues are not solved or not take care of the coming generations may find earth worth not living. The needs of the person become one. Environmental attitude a learned predisposition to respond consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to the environment. Environmental degradation is the decline of land productivity and forest cover due to human and environmental factor. Environmental Awareness: Environmental Awareness is concern towards environment or environmental problems. In other word it is defined as “an idea holding a general impression or consciousness about something without having to know much about it.”. Environmental Attitude: Environmental Attitude a learned predisposition to respond consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to the environment”. Areas of Attitude -

• Social Change- social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. Social change may include changes in nature, social institutions, social behaviors, or social relations.

• Liberalism- The concept of liberalism suggests a particular account of the development of liberal thought. It suggests that liberalism was at one point in time an influential political ideology, but that it at some point lost some of its significance, only to revive itself in more recent times in a new form.

• Nationalism- “Nationalism is in itself neither good nor bad, as little as capitalism, socialism or imperialism is.” But several authors distinguish between two kinds of nationalism, which in fact are “good” and “bad”.

• Social Revolution- This can partially be ascribed to the fact that nothing is so contrary to existing interest and prejudices as this concept, and partially to the fact that few things are so ambiguous.

• Untouchability- Untouchability is a direct product of the caste system. It is not merely the inability to touch a human being of a certain caste or sub-caste.

In today’s competitive world, education is an important means for the socially disadvantaged people to raise their standard of living, education has an important role to play in development of the country. Scholarly fulfillment is described as learning procured and abilities advanced in school subjects, usually showed by imprints acquired in tests in a twelve-month examination. Accomplishment is the sparkling crown which reflects a feeling of genuineness, realism and perserversence on the part of achievers and moreover folks, educators and all those serving to realize it, and in this manner an effect of didirectional comes about. Scholastic cause is pointed to as the necessity for actualization. Ahmed (1998). Actualization conduct may be characterized as any movement administered of adding on support where open models of perfection are material. Rajamanickam and Vasanthal (1993) stated that academic fulfillment implies fulfillment a learner makes in school to be specific his imprints in the examination, which is the measure for the fulfillment of an understudy. It is essential to comprehend the parts of parental inclusion that influence scholastic accomplishment. The term parental inclusion has been utilized to point to diverse sorts of parental actions for example rendering general scholastic direction and help

cooperating in school occasions (Stevenson and Baker, 1987). Certain agents have emphasised one particular measurement of parental inclusion, while others, have utilized worldwide measures. There is, in any case, a requirement to keep tabs on assorted parts of guardian's association.

POPULATION AND SAMPLE : The citizenry of the study comprised of High School Children from 8th, 9th and 10th class learners with an age run of 12-16 years examining in helped and unaided coeducational High Schools of Dharwad city. A preparatory overview was completed to gather qualified data noticing the aggregate number of private and administration schools in Dharwad city. The record of administration and nongovernment schools was gotten from the workplace of the District Education Officer Dharwad. There were 41 High Schools in Dharwad city. Near them two were legislature, 27 supported besides 12 unaided High Schools. Near the aforementioned 8 were single sex schools, and 33 coeducation schools. There were five schools with English medium, 20 schools with Kannada medium and 7 schools with both Kannada and English medium of direction. Out of the aforementioned 8 coeducational High Schools were chosen correspondingly by medium of guideline with two every. From each of the chose High Schools and from each of the class (8th, 9th, 10th) one and only one area of the scholars were chosen haphazardly. From the chose segment at least 5 every young men and young ladies from every one of the three classes were haphazardly chosen. Consequently the aggregate example for the study constituted 240 youngsters. RESEARCH DESIGN : The study aimed to know the academic learning environment of student from aided and unaided co-educational high schools and also the factors that influence the academic achievement of children through correlation design. Further, differential design was used to compare the academic learning environment of student from aided and unaided co-education high schools and students with English and Kannada medium of instruction. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES : Data collection was made by using pre-tested questionnaire prior permission of the principal or headmaster’s was taken from the aided and unaided co-educational high schools to conduct the study. After taking permission from the school headmaster 8th, 9th and 10th class teachers were approached and strength of the each selected randomly. Among each section 5 boys and 5 girls were selected randomly. After establishing a rapport with subjects, school learning environment schedule and home learning environment schedule was self-administered on students, one schedules on each day to avoid fatigue and boredom. All the selected students from classes 8th to 10th were clubbed in one classroom and tool was administered on students. The children were instructed to give the responses. About one hour was required for the students to complete the school learning environment schedule and about half an hour was required by each student to complete the home learning environment schedule. Two days were spent on each selected school to collect information regarding academic learning environment of high school students.

The High School students possess strong positive correlation between environmental awareness and attitude towards environmental education. The reason behind this fact can be attributed that environmental education has been introduced as a compulsory subject in the curriculum. The Hon‟ble Supreme Court of India (22nd November, 1991) had directed the state governments and education boards to introduce environmental education as a compulsory subject at all levels of education (school to college). The student of High School is now-a-days in touch with the environmental content while learning this subject; the students‟ ample knowledge and information about environmental concepts, its importance, problems and solutions. There is significant difference in environmental awareness among High School students with respect to the settlement. The students of rural and urban High School are not equally aware about the environment. For the purpose of this study, both environmental specialists and H.S. instructors were considered as educators because they shared a mutual interest regarding environmental education programs. However, the statistical analysis revealed some differences as well as similarities between these groups. The analysis of the mean percentage for AKA in the environmental specialists showed higher percentage scores in all three aspects when compared to the scores of the H.S. instructor group. The higher scores for environmental specialists were attributed to attitude (M= 78.2%), knowledge (M= were no statistically significant differences for the percentages regarding knowledge and attitude. These results imply that H.S. instructors possess the knowledge and attitude necessary for implementing the environmental curriculum.

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