A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AMONG

RURAL AND URBAN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS OF

LUDHIANA DISTRICT

*Paramjeet Kaur Mangat

Asst. Prof., Smt. Jawala Devi College Of Education, Cordia Group, Sanghol, F.G.S.,
Punjab, [email protected]
**Gurmeet Kaur
Scholar

ABSTRACT
The study aimed to examine the Environmental Awareness among rural and
urban senior secondary school students of Ludhiana districts. There was one
variables in the study namely Environmental Awareness. Tool used in this study
was Environmental Awareness Ability Measures (EAAM) by Jha (2010). Data
was collected from senior secondary school students of Ludhiana District (100
male and 100 female) out of which 100 students were from rural area and 100
students were from urban area. The data was analyzed by employing descriptive
statistics like Mean, Median, Mode, SD, t-ratio. It was analyzed that there exists
no significant difference in environmental awareness of rural and urban senior
secondary school students. It was further found that there exists no significant
difference in environmental awareness of male and female of senior secondary
school students.
KEYWORD: Environmental Awareness.

Environment refers to sum total of all conditions which surround a man at a given point
of space and time. The environment is a term which refers all physically fortifiable
things at a particular time. It is the interaction between the living and in a particular area
to perform various important activities of life.

Environment cover all outside factors that have acted on the individual since he began
life on earth. At the Belgrade international workshop (1957) working documents were
provided by the trend papers that described the state of the art of the environmental
education in all parts of the world and provisions to extend and explore the

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environmental awareness, it also states a study shows that environmental awareness may
provide power and understanding of some objectives of environmental education that is

 To recognize the interdependence among living and non-living things.

 To take decisions individually and collectively and initiate for conservation of
nature and natural resources.
 To make people about effective use of environmental resources.

Through the process of environmental awareness, people participate in the process of

development without destroying or affecting the economical balances because they are
aware about the side effects of environmental degradation. The environmental awareness
changes the human attitude towards nature. It creates consciousness and a sense of
responsibility towards environment in the society. Environmental awareness is needed so
that the people in general understand the complex nature of Nature and the man-made
environment so that they should be in position to actively and intelligently participate in
solving the problem related to the subject. They not only need motivation and knowledge
but even the skills to tackle problems and that will come from awareness and education.
Polluted environment in dangers the human raise by threatening its survival on the planet
earth. It is education which can make the human being conscious and knowledgeable
about various environmental problems.
COMPONENTS OF ENVIRONMENT:
Environmental factors may be biotic components (living organisms) and Abiotic
components (non-living variables). Biotic component: Biotic components are the living
things that form an ecosystem .Any living component that affects another organism is
known as biotic factor. Abiotic components are non –living compound and physical
elements in the environment. Components of environment can be listed into 4 major
aspects- Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere and Biosphere.

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS & UNDERSTANDING:

Environment awareness and understanding among the people are, at once conscious of
environmental education. An approach that emphasizes upon local issue, rather than
global once, is often more effective in promoting public interest and understanding. This
may account, in part, for the success of non-formal community environmental education

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and local environmental communication programmer in sensitizing people about the loss
of natural resources & make them aware about environmental issues in both urban and
rural areas.
A number of environmental problems have just a local dimension both in rural and urban
areas. People should be made aware of the use of water, electricity, detergents,
chemicals, plastic, steel, wood etc. above this level come the localities, villages and their
common properties and small towns. People should be encouraged in tree plantation and
maintenance, social forestry, environmental education, extension programmers etc.
ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Educational institutions play a very important role in spreading awareness among the
mass and these efforts help in the Student awareness to student participation for achieves
public awareness to public participation. Environmental education in schools is taught as
a separate subject by following the syllabus framed by NCERT since 2004. The main
objectives of imparting environmental awareness in school curriculum is to great
awareness & knowledge, developing positive attitude & preparing students for
participating in solving various environmental problems.
ENVIRONMENT EDUCATION & AWARENESS:
Environmental awareness refers to awareness about various problems related to
environment. We should understand that improvement in the environment automatically
improves the quality of life. It is not only a question of air and water pollution. It
includes elimination of disease, hunger, malnutrition and poverty, destruction of waste.
Hence there is an urgent need for proper management of the environment. The main
hurdle is that there is a lack of scientific knowledge and the will to act. In such a position
society needs to be convinced of the importance of environment and we have to rely the
fact that the way we live, will determine our future. As the problem is one, of the people
will go a long way in carrying out anti pollution measures. A number of environmental
problem have a local dimensions both in rural and urban areas. Role of Non-
Governmental organization (NGO, s) voluntary organizations help the government
regarding some Local environment issues. Some of their functions are as follows:
 They can be very effective in organizing Public movements for the protection of
environment through awareness programmes or courses.
 „Chipkoo Aandolan‟ for conservation of trees.

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  “Sastra Sahitaya Parishad” for science and environmental awareness research and
extension work.
 The recent report by CSE on use of excess pesticides in the Cola drinks sensitizes
the people all over the country.

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS: POLICY IMPLICATIONS

As government develops and revises national plans for environment and sustainable
development which needs to be increasingly considered and integrated. Environmental
education enables individuals to gain awareness about their environment. They also
acquire and exchange the knowledge, values, skills etc which enable them to act,
individually and collectively to solve all present and future problems. Environmental
education includes a broader approach which tries to overcome the common perception
of education as a one way flow of information usually taking place in school. This
approach tries to use environmental education as an instrument to enable participation
and learning for people for all ages, based on two way communication ultimately the
educational process become sustainable when the people decide to head for action, when
they take responsibilities and the process themselves. By achieving such a perspective,
civil servants, social groups and NGO‟s put into effective environmentally sound
policies for the conservation of nature. To achieve policy goals, government have at their
disposal strict command and control instruments such as taxes, levies, subsidies, and
laws as well as soft instruments such instruction, education, information, advertising and
public relations.
As a policy instrument, education is effective only then:
1. The target is an identifiable and reachable.
2. The policy is clear, effective and legitimate.
3. The source is credible and legitimate.
4. The behavior requested is practicable, visibly helps solve the problems, has low
individual cost, and is subject to control.
ROLE OF MEDIA IN CREATING ENVIRONMENTAL
AWARENESS
One of the most effective way of spreading awareness among largest possible audience
in the world and diverse country like India is mass media & vernacular press. Maximum
environmental documentaries show on TV today attracts few viewers because of the

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academic or pedantic manner in features on environmental issues, they usually
superficially researched and poorly written. Various issues like pollution, climate change
etc. the media has been playing a vital role in creating awareness and raise issue to the
pertaining topic of the environment. The media covers each corner of our country for
spreading awareness about environmental issues like drought in Gujrat, pollution in the
capital metropolitan cities, Chennai ground water level depletion and pollution from coal
mines in Jharia, west Bengal. It is still to be confirming that the role of mass media is
one of the most important factors spreading awareness about environmental problems.
METHODS TO PROPAGATE ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS:
Various stages and methods than can be useful in raising environmental awareness
among different strata of the society are given below:
 Inculcating among students with the help of education: It is excellent step that at
present, all over the state/country we are introducing environmental education as
a compulsory subject at all stage including high school, higher secondary and
college level which will be beneficial for all young generations.
 Role of electronic media & Press :The role of media is very important in
spreading awareness among the masses on environmental issues through
plantation campaigns , awareness rallies, Dramatization, real eco- disaster stories
etc. . Further TV serials are playing effective role in propagation of
environmental awareness amongst the people of all age groups.

 The society plays the most important role in shaping the future of the country, it
is very important to give them the decision maker for necessary orientation and
training through specially organized seminars, workshops and other training
programmes etc.

 Publication of environment related resources material in form of brochure,

advertising pamphlets or booklets published by ministry of environment
&forests, Govt. of India can also help in keeping environment save.

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REVIEWS OF RELATED LITERATURE
Kaur (2012) conducted a study to provide information about the level of
environmental awareness of B.Ed. students in Patiala district of Punjab (India).
Data was collected with self prepared questionnaire on 100 B.Ed students. The
results showed that B.ED students possessed fairly good level of environmental
awareness. It was concluded that no gap exists awareness of students when
distributed area wise and subject wise.
Sivakumar (2012) made a study on the environmental awareness of high school
students, related to their gender (boys/girls), locale (rural/urban) and type of
school (govt./private). The study was conducted in Karnataka state (Devengere
district). The sample comprised of 1440 students from standard ix in both urban
and rural areas and different types of schools by stratified random sampling. Tool
used for the study was environmental awareness ability measure developed by
Parveen Kumar Jha(1998). The data were analyses by using mean, SD,„t‟ test &
ANNOVA(two way). Results show that, gender and locality have interaction
effect on environmental awareness.
Singhal and Verma (2012) examined the study to measure environmental
awareness by a standard tool in higher secondary students of Jabalpur, Madhya
Pradesh. Level of environmental awareness was found to be high in most students
of different disciplines without gender difference. The students of humanities
showed minimum awareness; biology and mathematics students showed the
maximum environmental awareness. The students of central board had better
awareness than those of state board.
INFERENCE:
Many studies have been conducted on environmental awareness by many
researchers. From most of the studies, it is evident that urban students have more
environmental awareness than rural students and there is a different
environmental awareness level between male and female students.

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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AMONG

RURAL AND URBAN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS OF
LUDHIANA DISTRICT.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

 To study the environmental awareness among rural senior secondary school

students.

 To study the environmental awareness among senior secondary school students

with respect to their gender and locale

 To find out the difference in environmental awareness between rural and urban
senior secondary school students.

 To find out the difference in environmental awareness between male and female
senior secondary school students.

HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY:

 There exists no significant difference in environmental awareness ability of

students belongs to rural and urban areas.
 There exists no significant difference in environmental awareness ability of males
and females senior secondary school students.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROBLEM:

Human beings are the best creation of god and he always like to go for
discovering something new, inventing, creating etc. He has the ability of
transforming the nature. But, sometime same creativity can cause harmful effect
to environment. Thus, since beginning of the earth he benefited the earth and with
same zeal caused the harm also. He polluted the water, air, cause harm to living

7
 beings on earth, land, sky etc. Ozone layer is depleted. At present, the entire
world is facing numerous of environment problems. These problems are of great
concern for scientists all over the world. We better know that over-exploitation
of natural resources is responsible for some of environmental problem. Some
other problems are the direct outcome of lack of concern toward environment.
Environment is threatened due to many hazards. Air, water and soil pollution is
increasing every day. Vehicular exhausts, smoke releasing tall smokestacks,
mining are various problem associated with human activities. Such activities pose
many threats to the help of people. Degradation of environment result in many
problems. All this disturbs the ecological balance. The government is taking
several steps but is not success everywhere. Participation of people and students
is there for, very important in planning and management of environment. The
surrounding in which we live is our environment. Therefore there is a need
product and pre service our environment. Hence efforts are being made for
inculcating environment consciousness among the masses.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF THE TERM USED:
Environmental Awareness: - Environmental awareness refers to information, conscious
and sensitive state of an individual about environment and its allied problems along with
measures for protection. Environment awareness means pure knowledge &
understanding of environment and applied knowledge for solving various environmental
problems.
SAMPLE: In the present study, sampling has been done by using Random Sampling
Method. The researcher shortlisted sixteen schools from Ludhiana district (8 schools
from rural area and 8 schools from urban area). The schools were randomly selected by
lottery method. A Sample of 200 students from rural and urban senior secondary school
students were selected. The systematic layout of design is as follows.

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 200 Students

100 Urban 100 Rural

50 Male 50 Female 50 Male 50 Female

DELIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT STUDY:

1. The study was restricted to 200 senior secondary school students only.
2. The study was restricted to 100 urban and 100 rural senior secondary school
students (100 male and 100 female) only.
3. The study was confined to Ludhiana district only.

TOOL USED IN THE STUDY:

Environmental Awareness Ability Measures, (EAAM) by Jha.

METHOD AND PROCEDURE

The methodology makes the most important contribution towards the conduct of the
study. It helps to achieve economy in time and coordinating of efforts. Descriptive
survey method was used for present study. The data for the present study was collected
from subjects belonging to various government &private schools of Ludhiana district. In
all there were 200 students including both boys and girls. Before collecting data,
confirmation from the head of the institutions was obtained and rapport with the students
of senior secondary classes established. Before disturbing the test was readout. Students
were motivated for providing correct response. At the time of data collection it was
checked that they have answered all the statement. The scoring was done manually for

9
each list as discussed under tools. Scores of each individual were obtained on the basis of
the tests.

STATISTICAL TECHNIQUE USED:

Mean, Median, Mode, Standard Deviation & t-test.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS

Analysis has been done with the help of various statistical techniques. The researcher
found the results are being discussed in the table below:

TABLE 1: Group- wise N, M, S.D, and t-value in Environmental Awareness among Rural
and Urban Senior Secondary School Students.

category Number Mean S.D t-value

Rural 100 30.57 9.30 2.16
Urban 100 27.82 6.23
Not significant at 0.05 level and significant at 0.01 level of confidence.

Mean value and standard deviation of environmental awareness among students of rural
area are calculated as 30.57 and 9.30 respectively. Mean value and standard deviation of
environmental awareness among students of urban areas are calculated as 27.82 and 6.23
respectively.

Further the calculated t-value is 2.16 which are significantly higher than the table value
of 1.96 at 0.05 level of confidence.

Further the calculated-value is 2.16, which is less than 2.58 (table value) at 0.01 level.

Hence hypotheses which state that “there will be no significant difference in

environmental awareness ability of students residing in rural and urban areas” is
accepted as 0.05 level of confidence and rejected at 0.01 level of confidence.

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 Mean

31

30

29 Rural
30.57
28 Urban
27.82
27

26
Rural Urban

Table 2: Group- wise N, M, S.D and t-value of environmental awareness among of male
and female senior secondary school students.

category Number Mean S.D t-value

Male 100 28.8 18.14 0.41
Female 100 29.67 14.98
Not significant at 0.05level and 0.01 level.

Mean value and standard deviation of Environmental Awareness ability of male senior
secondary school students 28.8 and 18.15 respectively. Mean value and standard
deviation of Environmental Awareness ability of males and females senior secondary
school students are calculated as 29.67 and 14.98 respectively.

Further the calculated t-value is 0.41 which is less than 1.96 (table value) at 0.05 level.
Again the calculated t-value is 0.41 which is less than the 2.58 (table value) at 99 percent
(0.01 level) confidence interval.

Hence hypothesis which states that “there will be no significant difference in

environmental awareness ability of males and females senior secondary school students”
is accepted at 0.05 level and accepted at 0.01 level of confidence.

Mean

29.8
29.6 11
29.4
29.2 Male
29 29.67
Female
CONCLUSION:

following conclusions have been arrived in the present study:

 There was no significant difference in environmental awareness of rural and

urban senior secondary school students.
 There was no significant difference in environmental awareness of male and
female of senior secondary school students.

The purpose of this study was to examine Environmental Awareness among senior
secondary school students with respect to their gender and type of school. 200 students
from 16 secondary schools (rural and urban) of Ludhiana district were selected by
random sampling technique. The assessment instruments used in the study was
Environmental Awareness Ability measure (EAAM) by Jha (2010).Results depicts an
insignificant difference between mean scores of rural and urban senior secondary school
students on the variable of Environmental Awareness. There was found a significant
difference in male and female senior secondary school students on the variable of
Environmental Awareness.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

 The study may also be helpful in providing directions to the teachers and the
parents to provide suitable facilities and congenial environment to promote
environmental awareness level of the students.
 The study may also be helpful to encourage non-government institutions, media
and other concerned for promoting awareness among the people at all levels.

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  Educational programs and curriculum should give attention in developing the
individual‟s environment awareness.
 The study may also be helpful in designing special educational programs that
raise the environment awareness for school students.

SUGGESTION FOR THE FURTHER RESEARCH

Research is a continuous process. When one problem is solved, another problem crops
up; new problem is solved, it in turn to indicate still another problem needing scientific
exploration. Moreover, after completing one‟s piece of work, every investigator feels
tempted to suggest new problems for research. Presently the investigator would like to
offer the following suggestions for further research:-

 To promote environment education through various educational institutions.

 The study can be extended beyond Ludhiana district.
 A study can be made more comprehensive by extending it to state level which
will make result more valid and reliable.
 Effectively designed search strategies can be constructed an implemented.
 Larger sample can be taken for the study.
 A similar study can be done on college and university students.

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