Environmental values, attitudes and behaviors in high school students at a public school in the Amazon

Abstract

Environmental Education has been considered as one of the main strategies in view of the increased environmental impacts, produced by human activities. Despite, the important legal achievements regarding Environmental Education in Brazil, in practice, its implementation in Basic Education has faced great difficulties. Among other reasons, the absence of the use of evaluation mechanisms that allow diagnostic evaluations and strategic planning for more practical and efficient Environmental Education. In this context, the aim of this study was to apply a broad model of diagnosis and the values, attitudes and environmental behavior of high school students by analyzing the differences between sex, education level and age and correlations between environmental variables. A questionnaire with scales of values, attitudes and environmental behaviors was applied to a sample of 138 students from the first, second and third high schools of both sexes. A greater agreement was found between the students' responses and ecocentric values, followed by anthropocentric values. Female students were more in agreement with anthropocentric values and first-year students were more apathetic to environmental issues when compared to third-year high school students. Correlations were also found between responses to ecocentric values and environmental attitudes, ecocentric values and environmental behaviors, anthropocentric values and apathetic environmental attitudes and behaviors. The application of the scales provided relevant information that can be considered when planning Environmental Education practices, indicating points of the environmental issue that may be a priority.