Environmental Pollution–Specific Science Concepts Among The School Students of West Bengal

Dr. Subhas Chandra Bhat; Kamal Krishna De; Malay Kumar Sen

Volume : IV, Issue : IX, September - 2014

Environmental Pollution–Specific Science Concepts Among The School Students of West Bengal

Dr. Subhas Chandra Bhat, Kamal Krishna De, Malay Kumar Sen

Abstract :

The explanation of the causes of pollution in environment and their minimization mainly depend on science. To enable the students to give such explanation, learning of concepts common to both environment and science is important at the school stage. To investigate whether such concept learning differs significantly according to the characteristics of students (sex) and the location (polluted and non polluted zones) of the schools they study in, the researchers have designed the present study. Since enactive stage (as per J. Bruner) of environmental education almost ends in the upper primary level, the class VIII students have been considered as the population of the study. A sample of 1063 students of both sexes and schools located in polluted and non polluted zones of length and eadth of West Bengal has been considered. Findings: Locations of the schools whether in polluted or non polluted zones make no difference in the concepts scores of the students. However, boys and girls significantly differ in the concept scores. The interaction(as obtained from ANOVA) between sex and location is significant showing that boys and girls of different locations of their schools also differ in environment&ndash;specific science concepts.