Environmental Awareness Among Prospective Teachers

Environmental Awareness among Prospective Teachers of Himachal Pradesh Dr. Ajay Kumar Attri Lecturer, Deptt. Of Education, MLSM College Sundernagar, Mandi (HP) ABSTRACT The present study was undertaken to compare the environmental awareness of male and female, science and arts and rural and urban prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh. The sample comprised 260 (130 male and 130 female) prospective teachers. For the study Environment Awareness Ability Measure (EAAM) was developed and standardized by Parveen Kumar Jha (1998) consisted of 71 items was used. It was found that environmental awareness of prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh remains almost the same as far as effect of gender, stream and locale is concerned. This may be attributed to the fact that prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh were studying ‘Education for Human Value, Environment and Human Right’ as a compulsory subject during their B. Ed course. INTRODUCTION: India is one of the first countries where the constitution recognized the need for harmonizing environmental concerns with development. Article 48A specifically directs ‘The state shall endeavor to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forest and wildlife in the country’ and Article 51A (g) enjoins upon Indian citizens a fundamental duty ‘to protect and improve the natural. The concept environment can be understood in totally of all components surrounding the man i. e. environment is the sum of all social, biological, physical and chemical factors which compose the surroundings of man. Each component of these surroundings constitutes a resource on which man draws with a view of promoting human welfare. According to a Report of a Conference of African Education at Nairobi (1968) â€Å"Environmental Education is to create an awareness and understanding of the evolving social and physical environment as a whole, its natural, manmade, cultural, spiritual resources together with the rational use and conservation of these resources for development†. CONCEPT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS: The issue of environmental awareness is becoming global in nature. It has also drawn the attention of common people as environmental degradation and pollution are causing a serious threat to survival of mankind. There are several factors like thinning of ozone layer, creation of ozone hole, over population of many developing countries, the ever-increasing natural and technological disasters and threat of chemical and radiation hazards are threatening to wipe out the humanity from the earth. There are four major and integrating components of environmental awareness–knowledge, real life situation, conservation and sustainable development. Himachal Pradesh Government is trying to promote the development of an economically and environmentally sound eco-system while endeavoring to improve the living standards of the people in the state. The government is conscious of the intrinsic value of the environment and of ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic values there of further the government of Himachal Pradesh is trying to conserve and enhance the environment and follow a policy of sustainable development. Being aware of its central role in directing the development on a sustainable matrix, it calls upon people of Panchayatiraj, Local bodies, institutions and the organs of state for extending their full cooperation in this effort. REVIEW OF RELATED RESEARCH: The number of research studies has been undertaken by investigators on environmental awareness of students at various levels of education and findings of the same are as: Shahnawaj (1990) found that a very high level of awareness existed on the part of teachers and students and also found that environmental awareness was more in urban groups than in the rural group. Santipapwiwatana (1991) concluded that awareness of students was satisfactory with respect to environment. Gopalkrishan (1992) inferred that children were inspired from nvironmental education. Patel (1994) observed that the male teachers with long school experience of urban area are more aware about the environment education. Vashisht (1995) inferred that the level of awareness was found to be higher in case of boys as compared to girls. Bala (1996) indicated that level of awareness of university students especially university boys were satisfactory with respect to environment. Kumari (1999) fo und that private school teachers were more aware about environment as compared to government school teachers. Sharma (2000) indicated that urban students were more aware about their environment, about forests and environment component as compared to rural students. Owena (2000) concluded that the environmental literacy of urban middle school teachers were almost satisfactory. Thakur (2003) concluded that at primary stage both the rural and urban students are not much aware about environmental situation. Biasan (2005) concluded that both government and private school students have the same level of environmental awareness. Nagra and Dhillon (2006) inferred that Science teachers showed higher environmental education awareness than art teachers. Nagra, et. al. (2007) showed that secondary school teachers showed significant variation in environmental education awareness than elementary school teachers. The male and female secondary school teacher showed significant variation in environmental educational awareness. OBJECTIVES: 1. To find out the significant difference between mean scores of Male and Female prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness. 2. To investigate the significant difference between mean scores of Science and Arts prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness. 3. To study the significant difference between mean scores of rural and urban prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness. HYPOTHESES: 1. There will be no significant difference between mean scores of Male and Female prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness. 2. There will be no significant difference between mean scores of Science and Arts prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness. . There will be no significant difference between mean scores of rural and urban prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness. METHOD AND PROCEDURE: In the present study descriptive survey method of research was used and following method and procedure was used. POPULATION: All the prospective teachers of private B. Ed colleges of Himachal Pradesh constituted t he population of the study. SAMPLE: For the selection of 260 prospective teachers (130 male and 130 female) from the 8 private B. Ed colleges, method of convenient sampling was adopted. VARIABLE STRUCTURE: Gender, Stream and locale constituted the independent variables whereas Environmental awareness was the criterion variable. TOOLS USED IN THE STUDY: Environment Awareness Ability Measure (EAAM) was developed and standardized by Parveen Kumar Jha (1998) consisted of 71 items was used. The value of Reliability co-efficient varies between 0. 61 to 0. 84. It was quite valid as the items in it had already been treated and their content made relevant by incorporating the suggestions of the various experts. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: To test the hypothesis of the study t-test was performed on the scores of environmental awareness. The summary of the obtained results has been presented in Table-1. It is evident from the table-1 that the ‘t’-value testing the significance of mean difference among the Male and Female prospective teachers was calculated as 0. 15, which is non-significant both at 0. 05 and 0. 01 levels of confidence, which reflects that mean scores of Male and Female prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh do not differ significantly on environmental awareness. Thus, the null hypothesis that â€Å"There will be no significant difference between mean scores of total Male and total Female prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness† is accepted. Thus it may be concluded that Male and Female prospective teachers don’t differ significantly in their awareness toward environment. Table 1 Summary of the Statistical Calculations for Obtaining ‘t’-values with regard to Environmental Awareness among Prospective Teachers of Himachal Pradesh on Gender, Stream and Locale |Group |N |Mean |S. D. |t-value |Result | |(Prospective | | | | | | |Teachers) | | | | | | |Male |130 |44. 20 |4. 52 |0. 15 |Non-significant at | | | | | | |0. 05 level | |Female |130 |44. 12 |3. 91 | | | |Science |130 |44. 8 |4. 88 |0. 44 |Non-significant at | | | | | | |0. 05 level | |Arts |130 |44. 05 |3. 45 | | | |Rural |65 |43. 94 |5. 10 | |Non-significant at | | | | | |0. 66 |0. 05 level | |Urban |65 |44. 46 |3. 87 | | | Further, Table-1 indicates that the calculated ‘t’ value showing the significant difference in the mean scores of Science and Arts prospective teachers came out to be 0. 44, which is not significant even at 0. 05 level of confidence thereby, accepting the null hypothesis that â€Å"There will be no significant difference between mean scores of Science and Arts prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness†. Hence it may be concluded that Science and Arts prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh don’t differ significantly on environmental awareness i. e. they have almost similar awareness toward environment. Table-1 further shows that the‘t’-value reflecting the significance of mean difference among the rural and rural prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh was calculated as 0. 66, which is non-significant at 0. 05 level of confidence. Thus, the null hypothesis that â€Å"There will be no significant difference between mean scores of rural and urban prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh on environmental awareness† stands accepted. Thus, it may be concluded from the above interpretation that rural and urban prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh don’t differ significantly at environmental awareness i. . locale does not show much effect on environmental awareness of prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh. Thus, on the basis of the conclusions, it is inferred that environmental awareness of prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh remains almost the same as far as effect of gender, stream and locale is concerned thereby showing that gender, stream and loc ale do not show much impact on their environmental awareness. This may be attributed to the fact that environmental education has become the integral part of school as well as college curriculum. Same is the case with prospective teachers of Himachal Pradesh who study ‘Education for Human Value, Environment and Human Right’ as a compulsory subject. This gives them complete awareness about environment in relation to both stream and sex. Also, our findings get support from the study of Thakur (2003) which reflected that sex groups had equal awareness regarding the environment. REFERENCES: Bala, I. (1996) A Study of Environmental Awareness among University Students, M. Ed. Dissertation, Department of Education, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla. Biasan, A. 2005) Comparative Study of Environmental Awareness Among Government and Private Secondary School Students in District Kangra of Himachal Pradesh, M. Ed. Dissertation, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla,. Constitution of India (Part IV Directive Principles of State Policy) †¦ Article 48A Protection and improvement of environment and safeguarding of forests. Gopal Krishan, S. (1992) An Impact of Environmenta l Education on Primary School Children, Fifth Survey of Research in Education (1988-92), Vol. II, NCERT, New Delhi. Kumari, S. (1999) A Study of Environmental Awareness among Elementary School Teachers. M. Ed Dissertation, Department of Education H. P. U, Shimla. Maheswari, B. K. and Sharma, B. L. (2004) Education for Values, Environment and Human Rights. Merrut: Surya Publication, PP. 1-4. Ministry of Education, Government of India (1985) Challenge of education: a policy perspective. 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