Using Environmental Education as a Blueprint for Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

The study examined how environmental education can serve as a blueprint for achieving environmental sustainability. To provide a framework for the study, five research questions were formulated and answered. The research design adopted was the descriptive survey. The population consisted of twenty-five thousand four hundred and seventy-eight thousand (25,478) junior secondary school students across the entire Delta State. This research design was employed to collect data from a total sample size of 880 junior secondary school students in grade 3 from 22 schools. Data collection was done with the aid of a 25-item questionnaire diligently constructed by the author; the instrument was titled “Environmental Education and Environmental Sustainability Questionnaire. The instrument was validated correctly and reported a reliability index of 0.68 using the test-retest reliability method on 20 students in a school outside those used as the sample. The instrument administration was carefully carried out by the researcher, with the assistance of the subject teachers in the 22 schools used for the study. After collecting the data, the results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including the mean, with a value of 2.50 as the metric. The study's results and findings demonstrated that environmental education can promote environmental sustainability across all spheres of the environment, including the economy, health, and food security. As well as climatic and physical environments. Hence, the study recommends that environmental education be harnessed as an approach to achieving environmental sustainability.