In today's world, people take water for granted, not as a commodity, because it is available at almost every turn. The rapidly developing world and its growing industry, economy, agriculture, and our personal practices are seriously polluting the source of drinking water, which is vital to our lives. People are not sufficiently aware of the irrational way in which we are treating our drinking water resource. As the supply of drinking water is limited, we urgently need to change our practices and provide a favourable habitat for our posterity.
The study aimed to determine the status and quality of 5th grade pupils' knowledge about the water cycle and the effectiveness of water saving behaviours, and the relationship between environmental attitudes and water saving behaviours. The study sample included 439 5th grade pupils from 8 primary schools in Slovenia. Data were collected through a written anonymous questionnaire and an exam to assess knowledge about the water cycle, environmental attitudes, frequency of water saving behaviour and knowledge about the effectiveness of water saving behaviour.
We found that students had a lack of knowledge and some misconceptions about the water cycle. They also show a lack of understanding of the cyclical process of the water cycle in nature. Pupils showed average but positive attitudes towards the environment, with the highest level of agreement with statements about the rights of nature. The results showed a positive correlation between knowledge and environmental attitudes, i.e. students who have better knowledge about the water cycle also have more positive attitudes towards the environment and vice versa. The majority of pupils frequently perform behaviours to save water resources. Pupils are more likely to perform behaviours that involve saving visible water, and less likely to perform behaviours that involve saving virtual water. Pupils who have more knowledge about general water saving and less knowledge about virtual water are more likely to perform behaviours involving visible water and less likely to perform behaviours involving virtual water. When exploring the impact of gender, we found that male students showed better knowledge of the water cycle than female students. When analysing environmental attitudes, there were no statistically significant gender differences. Female pupils are more likely to perform behaviours related to saving visible water than male pupils.
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