Pupils' involvement in ecological activities in school

Abstract

Ecological education gains an increasing importance in the moment when ecological crisis acquires increasingly larger proportions. Education is one of the most powerful social means in fighting problems and challenges of the future. This paper presents the results of the research referring to pupils' attitudes with respect to the activities they prefer to be involved in, the independent variables their readiness for involvement depends on, as well as the relation between the knowledge possessed by pupils and their readiness to be involved in ecological activities. Research was conducted on the sample of 284 pupils in the eighth grade of primary school in urban and rural area and polluted and unpolluted environment. The results indicate that pupils find more interesting the activities taking place in nature, those where they are immediate participants and those where they have a subjective feeling that they are doing something to protect the environment. Besides, the results show that girls from both samples and pupils from rural area are more ready to get involved in ecological activities. Living in polluted or unpolluted environment is not a statistically significant variable which would influence the readiness of pupils to get involved in these activities. As the most interesting result of this research, we consider the finding that a higher level of pupils' ecological knowledge and living in polluted environment do not guarantee higher readiness of pupils to get involved in the activities of environment protection.

Ekološko vaspitanje i obrazovanje dobija sve veći značaj u trenutku kada ekološka kriza poprima sve šire razmere. Obrazovanje predstavlja jedno od najmoćnijih sredstava društva u borbi sa problemima i izazovima budućnosti. U radu su predstavljeni rezultati istraživanja koje se odnosi na stavove učenika o tome u kojim aktivnostima bi se najradije angažovali, od kojih nezavisnih varijabli zavisi njihova spremnost na angažovanje, kao i u kom odnosu su znanja koja učenici poseduju i njihova spremnost da se angažuju u ekološkim aktivnostima. Istraživanje je sprovedeno na uzorku od 284 učenika VIII razreda osnovne škole u gradskoj i seoskoj sredini i zagađenoj i nezagađenoj sredini. Rezultati ukazuju da su učenicima interesantnije aktivnosti koje se odvijaju u prirodi, u kojima su oni neposredni učesnici i u kojima imaju subjektivan osećaj da čine nešto za zaštitu životne sredine. Pored toga, rezultati pokazuju da su devojčice iz oba uzorka i učenici sa sela spremniji da se angažuju u ekološkim aktivnostima. Život u zagađenoj ili nezagađenoj sredini nije statistički značajna varijabla, koja bi uticala na spremnost učenika na angažovanje u ovim aktivnostima. Smatramo da je najinteresantniji rezultat ovog istraživanja nalaz da viši nivo ekološkog znanja učenika i život u zagađenoj sredini ne garantuju i veću spremnost učenika da se angažuju u aktivnostima zaštite životne sredine.