School children demonstrate positive environmental attitude despite previous misconceptions

Children's attitudes towards and knowledge about the environment are common indicators of success of EE programs. The Theory of Reasoned Action suggests that knowledge plays an important role in developing a person's attitude and behaviors. Determining children's knowledge about and attitudes toward the environment is an important step to effectively teaching EE to those children. Additionally, understanding the relationship between environmental knowledge and environmental attitude in children will help schools and teachers develop EE curricula that will produce future environmental advocates. In Greece, schools have taught EE in 5th and 6th grade for nearly 20 years; however, few studies have measured the success of such programs. This study evaluated children's environmental attitudes and knowledge to discern EE efficacy in Greek schools.

The authors conducted this study on the island of Crete, located in southern Greece. They randomly selected 281 children from 22 public primary schools in two western regions of the island, Chania and Rethimno. First, the researchers designed a questionnaire with two sections: 1) demographics and 2) Children's Environmental Attitudes and Knowledge Scale (CHEAKS). CHEAKS is used in research worldwide, which allowed the researchers to compare results to other studies. As the name implies, this instrument evaluates knowledge and attitude separately, addressing attitudes towards and knowledge of six sub-topics: animals, energy, pollution, recycling, water, and general issues. The researchers administered the questionnaire to students during class. The highest possible score was a 66; there were 36 possible points for attitude and 30 for knowledge, and a high score correlated with a strong understanding and positive attitude towards the environment. The authors used statistics to analyze the survey data.

Overall findings demonstrated that students scored relatively low on the knowledge portion of the questionnaire and had misconceptions about environmental issues such as recycling, energy, pollution, and water resources. Despite low knowledge scores, participants held positive attitudes towards the environment. The authors suspected that these findings may have occurred because the questionnaire statements were generally positive and children were more likely to agree with statements than to disagree. This result also may indicate that factors other than knowledge contribute to positive attitudes toward the environment.

Results showed that 6th graders scored significantly higher on the knowledge portion than 5th graders. Certain demographic characteristics significantly affected children's knowledge and attitude towards the environment. For example, children with fathers in middle class occupations had a better attitude towards the environment than those with fathers in lower class jobs. Children from urban areas showed greater knowledge of pollution issues than children from rural areas. Knowledge scores were significantly and positively affected by knowledge of a foreign language, being from an upper-class family, reading of literature versus not, familiarity with National Geographic Magazine, and watching documentaries.

Next, the researchers applied CHEAKS to evaluate how students conceive the above environmental topics. Although misconceptions arose in each category, only pollution demonstrated a worsening trend of comprehension from 5th to 6th grade. The authors suggested that CHEAKS focuses on demographic information that educators cannot alter and fails to consider other factors, such as those mentioned above, that may influence environmental behaviors. Consequently, teachers should implement components that can influence environmental change, such as foreign language knowledge.

Some findings from this research contradicted results from other studies; specifically, which factors affected students' knowledge and attitude towards the environment. These disparities highlight the complexity of the issue and imply that other factors may affect the relationship between environmental knowledge and attitude in children. Similarly, the conflicting results may indicate the lack of relationship between knowledge and attitude, meaning that knowledge of a topic does not guarantee pro-environmental behaviors. EE curricula vary widely, so these results would likely vary by location and student age.

The researchers suggested that schools should incorporate extracurricular programs into their formal EE curricula that allow students to develop environmental responsibility. These programs should engage students in real world activities such as developing a classroom recycling project that students could apply to their day-to-day life. The authors encourage schools to incorporate modern EE approaches, such as field trips, lab experiments, new technologies, and group work. In addition, schools should implement teacher training on EE topics, and establish specialized courses for environmental issues.