The Environmental Knowledge and Attitude of Middle-School Students in Five Prominent Green Schools in Indonesia

摘要

This research aimed to assess the levels of the environmental knowledge and attitude of the middle-school students in five prominent green schools in Indonesia and to determine the possible factors related to their achievements. The findings were very important in giving feedbacks of the implementation of environmental education in Indonesia, especially in the early educational level. This research relied on the qualitative paradigm. A total of 1203 middle-school students and five Science teachers were involved in the survey and interview. The data related to environmental knowledge and attitude were gathered using a valid and reliable instrument of the environmental-literacy test and a prominent closed-ended questionnaire measuring the levels of ecological paradigm, the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Instrument. The data were descriptively displayed using SPSS 17.0. The data related to the Science teachers' perceptions were gathered using in-depth-interview technique. Context analysis was used to draw the observed data to provide the explanation of the factors related to the achievement of the levels of students' knowledge and attitude. The results of the descriptive analysis showed that the participants possessed a low level of knowledge and a middle-ecological level of attitude. The lack of important environmental competencies enhancing environmentally-friendly attitude within the curriculum and poor active and contextual teaching-and-learning processes may be of important factors related to the students' low levels of knowledge and attitudes.