Our study was conducted in order to discover the interest of the primary school students for useful plants, what is their self-esteem and their view for drugs. We were also interested if these categories are related one to another, and if gender and age influence on the answers of the students. Survey questionnaires were divided into three primary schools of Vrhnika and its surroundings. The respondents were 290 students of the last triad of elementary school.
The results about useful plants have shown, that students show above-average interest for 12 categories of plants. The first category were plants which we use for healing and in last place were plants for the extraction of opium and heroin. Depending on student’s age, the results did not show statistically significant differences in any of the four major categories of useful plants, but we discovered that boys are more interested in ornamentals, and girls more in spice plants.
The sentences, which were related to their self-esteem, students evaluated above average in nine cases, among which has been in the first place the statement “Overall I am pleased with myself,” and in the last place "Most of time I see myself as a loser". Students of all three classes have a similar negative self-esteem, while positive self-esteem for different age of the students is statistically significant. The highest is in the students of the seventh class, and the lowest in students of the ninth class. On the basis of gender emerged statistically significant differences in both forms of the self-esteem, where the results showed girls have a higher positive self-esteem and lower negative self-esteem compared with boys.
In the last part of the questionnaire, we checked the view of the students for drugs, where statistically significant differences emerged between the schools, nine cases. We have found that students of school number 2 were more interested in drugs, and had the highest score in most of the sentences given, such as »I have already smoked a whole cigarette«, or »My parents know I'm smoking«, or »I have already drunk the whole alcohol drink«, »Smoking cannabis/marijuana should be allowed« etc. Depending on the age, there is a statistically significant difference in 13 sentences, where, in the majority were led by students from ninth class, for example, that they have smoked a cigarette several times, consumed alcoholic beverage and the most often agree, that it is acceptable to try ecstasy once or twice, or occasionally smoke marijuana/cannabis. The lowest results had students of seventh classes. In differences according to sex, we fund that girls are more inclined in drugs. They had higher scores in most of the sentences, e.g. that they have already smoked a cigarette and drank an alcoholic drink, they agree more with the statement that it is acceptable to occasionally smoke cannabis/marijuana and drink one or two alcoholic drink per week.
As an important part of the research was also the correlation between all three categories. We have found that there is a statistically significant correlation between positive self-esteem and interest of the students for the spice plants. Among the various plant topics and the views of the students in drugs, we found a larger number of positive correlations, e.g. in the case of organically produced and medicinal herbs that have a positive correlation with the answer that young people take drugs because the people they hang out with, do it, and because it is exciting to take the risk. The same happened in case of plants from which we produce drugs in correlation with the task, where the students had to decide, how many times they already felt drunk and the extent to which they agree with the statement that it should be allowed to smoke cannabis/marijuana. We also found correlations between self-esteem and the views of students to drugs, both positive and negative, but they were all weak. Positive self-esteem positively correlates with the answer in the third task, "nobody in our home smokes cigarettes", with the task 8, that young people use drugs, because the people they hang out with, do it. The negative correlation in the same self-esteem, however, occurred in response to the sentence »mother or brother smoke at home«, and in the task 5, where the students he to decide, "how many times have you already drank so much alcohol that you felt drunk? «. Negative self-esteem positively correlated with the sentence »father or mother smoke at home«, and the task 6, where they had to decide if people addicted to drugs are more criminals or more patients. The same correlation also happened with the task 8, that young people use drugs for reasons such as " to be popular", "to appear cool", etc. Negative self-esteem showed a negative correlation with the answers of the students where nobody at home smokes cigarettes.
The results of our research would contribute to the development of better approaches of teaching about plants in biology, and with this we would achieve greater interest of the students for plants and also a greater awareness of young people about the importance of a positive self-esteem and the consequences of taking drugs. Drugs in schools still occur, so it would be good to do some extra education, workshops, or performances by outside people who have experience in this field and teach young people some more about healthy life.
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