Benefits of Teaching Environmental Education on Solid Waste Management for Engineering Students

Transcription

1 Benefits of Teaching Environmental Education on Solid Waste Management for Engineering Students Puttam Reddy MAMATHA * * [PhD], [Lecturer], Department of Chemistry, JNTU A College of Engineering, Pulivendula , YSR(Dist),A.P, India], [[email protected]], [ ] Mamatha, Puttam Reddy. This is a research/review paper, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Special Issue Theme: Planning, Policies & Global Issue

2 Benefits of Teaching Environmental Education on Solid Waste Management for Engineering Students Puttam Reddy MAMATHA Abstract The aim of the study is to discuss the benefits of environmental education especially on solid waste management. The study was conducted on engineering students (B.Tech) I year (60) and II year (60) (B.Tech) students mainly on solid waste management and to explore whether there was a significant difference in the attitudes towards the solid waste management of the above mentioned two groups. Data was gathered by circulating a solid waste management questionnaire to 120 students. The results indicated that the participants of this study accepted that participants of this study accepted that environmental pollution relating to solid waste management is a serious problem of our times. II year Engineering students who are having Environmental sciences in their syllabus are more aware of individual responsibilities in finding solutions for solid waste management, the findings also demonstrated that II year Engineering students significantly differed in their attitude towards solid waste management prevention and control from I year Engineering students. The survey conducted suggests the importance of environmental education for engineering students. Keywords: Environmental education, solid waste, Engineering students, Pollution Acknowledgment Nil 473

3 I. Introduction Education and awareness in the areas of pollution control and waste management is becoming increasingly important from a global perspective of resource management. Energy, environment and recycling should be truly understood by every section of the society (Darwin & Mishra, 1983). Environmental education should be taught to all students at school and college level, in view of its importance for the students for carrying out research in the field of environmental sciences for sustainable development. Rapid growth of population and Solid waste management are the some of the main challenging problems for developing countries. Waste management approaches include community based primary waste collection schemes and the use of films to create solid waste management awareness (Choe, 1999). The waste disposal habits of the community causes the deterioration of the urban environment. This requires solid waste education and communication focusing to raise awareness within the community about the need for better solid waste management ( Narayan Tapan, 2009). The education programme builds on the knowledge, values, skills, experiences, and determination of human capacity needed to work on solving waste management issues at an individual and community level (Salequzzaman & laura, 2001). There are several developed attitudinal scales on environmental education (Sagir et al, 2008), ( Sama, 2003),( Tanriverdi,2009) and (Teksoz et al,2009).the cause and effect relationship between human activity and the environmental must often be learned through education processes. Education can thus be a means of providing the values and attitudes,skills and behaviour necessary to bring aware of the Environment one of the trends investigated concerning young people s environment behaviour, as stated (Loughland et al, 2003).The present study is on the awareness of solid waste management on Engineering Students and Benefits of environmental education. The Following research questions were addressed 1) Importance of Environmental education in Engineering courses (B.Tech) 2) Knowledge on solid waste management. 3) Benefits of teaching environmental education on solid waste management for Engineering Students and what are the problems caused on improper disposal of solid waste, measures to protect environment. II. Methodology Participants The study was limited to 60 Engineering students who are studying I year ( not having environmental sciences subject in first year), 60 Engineering students from II Year(having environmental 474

4 science in their syllabus) including both males and females and age group between years from JNTU A College of Engineering, Pulivendula,YSR Kadapa Dist, AP, India. 120 students were participated in the study. Research Design: The research design is the preparation of an Environmental Questionnaire on solid waste management. The Questionnaire is comprised of four dimensions: 1) Types of solid waste disposal on roads, empty sites, open spaces and dustbins 2) Types of waste generated in the houses 3) Problems caused by the improper disposal of solid waste. 4) Measures to protect the Environment Three experts in the field of environmental sciences established the Validity of the questionnaire through review. Revisions were made based on their comments and suggestions. The dimensions that comprise the questionnaire and related items provided in Table 1, Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4. III. Result and Discussion The socio-demographic information shows that most of the I year and II year students are form nuclear families. While only a few were from joint or extended families. Parents of both I year and II year were educated below degree, a few parents are Undergraduates and Postgraduates, most of them are not educated. The study revealed that all the Engineering students are aware of waste management. Table 1: Types of waste disposal (N= 60) S.No Types of waste Disposal in I year B.Tech II year B.Tech Kadapa, YSR Dist,Andhra Pradesh. India 1 Roads Empty Sites Open spaces Dustbins Source: Field Survey B.Tech: Bachelore of Technology 475

5 Regarding the type of solid waste disposal in Kadapa,YSR Dist,Andhra Pradesh, India, it is observed in Table 1 that I year B.Tech students remarked that majority of the waste is seen on empty sites,roads, open spaces, dustbins.ii B.Tech students indicate that they are find most of the waste on open spaces, empty sites, roads, overflow from dustbins. Table:2 Types of waste generated in the Houses (N = 60) Type I Year B.Tech II year B.Tech Maximum Minimum Maximum Minimum Organic/Vegetable Plastic Newspaper Glass Miscellaneous Source: Field Survey The type of waste generated in the houses is evident in the Table 2. Majority of the I year B.Tech students have mentioned that there is lot of organic/vegetable waste while a minimum amount of plastic, glass, news paper waste is generated. II B.Tech students have observed that organic/vegetable waste is maximum, while glass is of minimum waste.a lesser quantity of newspaper, plastic, miscellaneous waste are generated. Table 3: Problems caused by improper disposal of solid waste. (N= 60) Problems Type of pollution I year B.Tech II year B.Tech Destruction of forests soils Damage to the coastal areas water, soil Oil spills water Plastics water, soil Air Pollution Air Sewage pipe leakages water Source: Field Survey Table 3 reveals that higher percentage of the II year B.Tech students felt that there is more damage to the forest, coastal areas, oil spills,plastics,air pollution sewage pipe leakages when compared to the I year B.Tech students. 476

6 Table 4: Measures to protect the environment (N = 60) Measures to protect the environment I year B.Tech II year B.Tech Dispose waste Without concern Utilize disposable items Reduce, reuse and recycle Source: Field Survey In Table 4, it is been observed that II year students are having good knowledge and understanding the necessity to save the environment from further damage, and happy to follow the concept of reduce, reuse and recycle, while only a small percentage felt disposable items must be utilized to protect the environment. IV. Conclusions and Recommendations Teaching and learning environment is an important issue for sustainable environment. Students who are the basic pillars of society are not only today s citizen but also the citizens of future who are going to shape our future. In this study I and II year engineering student s attitude towards the solid waste management and the difference between the two was investigated. As the answers of the I year students show the perception of the students towards the environment is medium and they are not in the state of implementing the possible solutions and individual responsibilities into their own lives. The II year Engineering students are familiar with the basic problems on solid waste management and individual responsibilities to reduce, reuse and recycle solid waste. The results of the study were compared with the results of the study on Poland students and turkey students (grodzinska-jurzak, 2006) and (Alp, 2005). Finally as one of the most challenging result of this study, that more than 90% of the II year engineering students agree that solutions on the solid waste management are strongly correlated with increasing environmental awareness, as also suggested by Petegum (Petegum et al., 2005) in their article. I strongly recommend Teachers, lectures, or professors who are specialized in environmental sciences or with proper training in environmental education should teach environmental sciences. There are several studies in the literature related to the impact of university-level environment classes on student s values resulting with positive changes ( Mc.Millan et al, 2004; Mc.Millan,2003). Further, in Andhra Pradesh we do not have any permanent faculty positions for teaching environmental science in Government Engineering colleges, even though we have environmental sciences subject, which is compulsory in II year (B.Tech) for all branches of engineering courses. I also recommend one Project work on environment issues for the engineering students. Further awards for garbage collection and processing should be given for institutes and 477

7 organizations. A campaign to promote segregation of waste, garbage disposal at source and to discourage the use of plastic should be taken up immediately. 478

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