Extent of global environmental awereness among third year secondary students in Beirut

النوع : Mémoire

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of global environmental awareness of the ozone layer depletion, the greenhouse effect and acid rain, and to identify knowledge concerning these global environmental upheavals among students at the third level. The subjects of the study were students of the third-secondary level enrolled in different public and private academic schools and technical institutes in Beirut. The sample was drawn from 14 schools and institutes located in the city of Beirut and its southern suburb. Twelve were academic and two were technical. Six academic schools were public, and six were private. The two technical institutes were one public and one private. The whole sample of this study constituted of 156 students. A questionnaire was administered to students in May 1997. Results revealed a significant students’ misunderstanding of the ozone layer concept. It reveals that students, in general, lack much important information about ozone and the ozone layer. For the greenhouse effect issue, results were discouraging: Results showed that only 8.3% knew the exact definition of the term GE. Results related to the acid rain concept show how weak students’ environmental awareness is and how much students have misunderstandings regarding the actual environmental global problems. What was surprising was the high percentage of no answers among students for all items related to acid rain. The results indicated that many students appeared to confuse among the major environmental problems: air pollution, ozone depletion, the GE and global warming, and acid rain.