[[alternative]]The qualitative research of environmental awareness education

[[abstract]]Abstract One of the ultimate goals of environmental education is to solve present and future environmental problems; however, environmental actions to save the planet are affected by people’s environmental awareness and attitudes. Therefore, to nurture students’ environmental awareness is a key step for preparing their environmental actions. However, most of previous researches on environmental awareness are confined in the awareness of environmental problems in cognitive or psychomotor domains. There are few studies focusing on the affective domain and the beauty of urban nature and creatures. For environmental education in school, there are few programs designed to arouse students’ environmental awareness. So, the purposes of this research are as followed: 1. To figure out the content of environmental awareness through activities of interpreting what students are aware of on school grounds. 2. To figure out students’ development through designed activities of environmental awareness and advantages and disadvantages of activities. 3. To figure out difficulties and progress in practicing activities of environmental awareness from the perspective of teachers. The research was proceeded for a semester with qualitative methodology. The activities were designed into subjective and casual parts for 33 fifth-grade students in a big urban school by two participants and a researcher. The researcher observed, interviewed students, and collected recordings, field notes / research diaries, dialogue journals and activity sheets of students as data to be analyzed and interpreted. Triangulation was adopted to increase the research validity. The findings show that the content of environmental awareness can be categorized into four sets: existence, appearance, affection, and reflection. Teachers can arouse students’ environmental awareness by inquiry, share, encouragement, longstanding contact with nature. Activities can be refined by designing them more lively and experientially, and enhancing students’ motives to try. Students make progress in their abilities of environmental awareness, group cooperation, and having better relationship with nature and people. This research suggests teachers need to acquire more professional knowledge and pedagogy in environmental awareness education, abilities of adapting to changes. It’s also important for teachers to emphasize on student-first education and fellows learning. Keywords: environmental awareness, environmental education, experiential education