Students Engagement in Ecological Activities in Schools

Ecological education is gaining importance at the time when environmental crisis is getting wider and wider. Education is one of the most powerful resources of society in dealing with problems and challenges of the future. The paper presents results of research related to students' attitudes about the activities they would prefer to engage in, which independent variables their willingness to engage depends on, and how the knowledge that students possess and their willingness to engage in ecological activities are related. The survey was conducted on a sample of 324 seventh grade primary schools students in urban and rural areas, polluted and unpolluted environment, urban area - 180 students; rural area - 144 students). The sample of students was adjusted according to two criteria. The first criterion was the place where students live so we took into account the urban and rural areas; the second criterion was the level of pollution, i.e. noncontamination of the environment in which students live. The structure of the sample of students was presented with respect to gender, place and environment in which students live. Results indicate that students are more interested in activities that occur in nature where they are direct participants and they have a subjective feeling of really doing something to protect the environment. In addition, the results show that girls from both samples and students from the country are more willing to engage in environmental activities. Life in polluted and unpolluted environment is not a statistically significant variable that would affect the willingness of students to engage in these activities. We believe that the most interesting result of this research is the finding that a higher level of environmental knowledge of students and life in a polluted environment do not guarantee a greater willingness of students to engage in environmental protection activities