A Study of Environmental Awareness among Secondary School Students in Relation to Caste, Class of study in Anantnag District

Environmental Education must utilize diverse learning environment and a broad array of educational approaches to teaching learning about and form the due stress on practical activities and first hand experiences. The main objective of the present study is to study the influence of caste, class of study on the environmental awareness of Secondary School Students. Environmental Awareness Questionnaire developed by Haseen Taj (2003) was administered on a sample of 150 Secondary School Students representing 18 High Schools in Anantnag district by following the standardized procedures. Parametric statistics like‘t’test and ANOVA were employed for analysis of the data. There is significant influence of caste at 0.05 level on Environmental Awareness of the Secondary School Students. There is significant influence of class of study at 0.05 levels on Environmental Awareness of Secondary School Students.

The need for Environmental Education has also been formally acknowledged at both the national and international levels. Environmental consciousness should be developed among the students in each and every educational institution. This aspect is required to be integrated in the entire educational process.
Environmental Education promotes attitude of concern for the quality of biophysical environmental which will motivate citizens to participate in solving biophysical environmental problems. Environmental education and research are necessary because many environmental problems that cannot be solved by government alone can be solved by individuals, and the individual must be educated to know what needs to be done. With enormous ignorance of vital environmental problems it is disheartening to realize that in many countries including India, lot of time and money are being spent on environmental destructive activities than constructive once.
Kalpana Thakur (2012) conducted a study on environmental awareness among senior secondary students of Chandigarh. The study was conducted on the sample 200 senior secondary students from 04 schools of Chandigarh and was through descriptive survey. The findings of the study were: 1. Students of government and private schools exhibited comparable environmental awareness. 2. Science students exhibited very high degree of environmental than the students opting for humanities. 3. Male science students exhibited higher degree of environmental awareness than female science students but overall no significant difference was found between male and female students.
The main intention of the study is to find the influence of caste, class of study on environmental awareness.  (2003).

METHODOLOGY
The sample for the investigation consisted of 150 secondary school students from 18 secondary schools in Anantnag district. The stratified random sampling was applied in three stages. At first stage of study -class of study i.e. 8 th , 9th and 10 th classes. At the secondlocality i.e. rural and urban and at the third stage is gender i.e. boys and girls. It is a 2×2×2 factorial design with 150 sample subjects.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
On the basis of caste, the students are divided into three groups -OC, BC and ST. The mean values of environmental awareness of secondary school students for the three groups were tested for significance by employing 'F'-test. The results of the study are presented in Table  1: From table 1, it is evident that the computed value of 'F' for the environmental awareness of secondary school students 3.29. It is greater than table value of 'F' (3.14) for 2 and 147 df at 0.05 level. Hence hypothesis-1 is rejected at 0.05 level. It is concluded that the caste has significant influence on the environmental awareness of secondary school students. From table 1, it is evident that the computed value of 'F' for the environmental awareness of secondary school students 3.34. It is greater than table value of 'F' (3.14) for 2 and 147 df at 0.05 level. Hence hypothesis-2 is rejected at 0.05 level. It is concluded that the class of study has significant influence on the environmental awareness of secondary school students.

Findings of the Study
The findings of the study reveal that there is influence of caste on environmental awareness on secondary school students. Class of study has significant influence on the environmental awareness.
In the light of the findings, the following conclusions are drawn: 1. Caste has significant influence in the environmental awareness of the secondary school students. OC's students possess high environmental awareness than the other two castes. 2. Class of study has significant influence on the environmental awareness of the secondary school students.