Environmental awareness is a very important factor in today's world through which individuals realize how important it is to care for the environment. In order to limit and thus reduce environmental pollution in the future, consumer education is of paramount importance. As part of Slovenian primary school education, students in the sixth grade encounter such content in home economics classes, where they gain knowledge about waste management, environmental protection, and its impact on human health.
As these topics are covered to a lesser extent and in a more general form within home economics education, we conducted a study to determine the role of the home economics subject in students' environmental awareness. We were interested in whether there are differences in knowledge about environmental pollution among students in the sixth and eighth grades and which environmental topics students most commonly associate with environmental pollution.
The results of the survey, which involved 90 students, showed that students perceive Home Economics as an important subject in terms of raising awareness about the importance of reducing environmental pollution. They are well-acquainted with the content about air, water, and soil pollution covered during home economics education. However, they have limited knowledge about other types of environmental pollution, such as light, radioactive, sound, and thermal pollution, pollution with electromagnetic radiation, which would also be meaningful to address, even though not clearly outlined in the home economics curriculum. The research results clearly highlight content areas that are weak, and it would be beneficial for home economics teachers to organize relevant training in these areas.
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