Influence of environmental knowledge on secondary school students' attitudes toward environmental conservation in Central division, Machakos district, Kenya

Abstract

The title of this study is, 'The influence of environmental knowledge on secondary school students’ attitudes toward environmental conservation'. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of environmental knowledge on attitudes of secondary school students toward conservation within the framework of the established school curriculum. The research project was carried out in the Central division of Machakos district. The overarching objectives of the study included establishing secondary school students' environmental knowledge levels; establishing students' attitudes toward conservation; determining the extent to which environmental knowledge influences students' attitudes toward conservation and to find out environmental activities that students engage in while in school and out of school. The research problem was based on the premise that Kenya is among 47 countries in Sub - Saharan Africa that basically depend on their natural resources for development. However, the rate at which the natural resource base is deteriorating in the country is increasingly becoming unsustainable and therefore necessitating an urgent solution. Environmental education hence knowledge within the formal school curriculum was seen as a pragmatic response to this concern. It was on this basis that thh9rstud~ was carried out to investigate the influence of environmental knowledge on secondary school students’ attitudes toward conservation. The study was guided by the descriptive research design. Important variables in this study were students’ environmental knowledge which was the main factor of investigation while students’ and teachers' attitudes were the dependent variables. Extraneous variables were gender and challenges that students and teachers faced in their effort to conserve the environment.