Abstract:

The implementation of activities in the field of environmental protection depends not only on legislation, but also on the willingness of individuals to pursue certain social goals and values. Environmental education is a very important segment in developing environmental awareness among the population. Irresponsible use of the environment results primarily from non-existent or insufficiently developed environmental awareness. The goal of developing environmental awareness is to create a population that has the knowledge, skills, motivation, and certain behavioral patterns necessary to solve environmental problems. Environmental education helps learners gain environmental literacy, which has an attitudinal and behavioral component in addition to a knowledge component. Thus, the goal of environmental education is to provide learners with knowledge about the environment, a positive attitude towards the environment, competency in citizen action skills, and a sense of empowerment. Environmentally conscious individuals who exhibit responsible behavior should be cultivated to reduce the dangers posed by environmental problems. In this regard, the present study attempted to determine the environmental attitudes of crisis management students as ones being introduced to the topic. These students have a chance to increase their environmental awareness by learning about all the phases of crisis management life cycle. In crisis mitigation and preparation study courses the environmental protection legislation among others is explored, as well as the activities run in organizations for lessening the consequences of potential disasters to the environment. Along with the response phase courses students learn how environment is damaged while disaster takes place. During the recovery process, all the activities run have as a primary goal to shorten the crisis time as much as possible and to establish the regular state. Environmental damage should be assessed and all the necessary steps to heal the environment are to be done. The New Ecological Paradigm scale (NEP) was used to determine environmental attitudes of crisis management students. NEP Scale is one of the most widely used instruments for assessing environmental attitudes, and there is a consensus in the scientific community about the validity of the scale. The scale allows the measurement of five dimensions of pro-environmental attitudes (the fragility of the balance of nature, the reality of the limits to growth, anti-anthropocentrism, rejection of exemptionalism, and the possibility of an ecological crisis).

Keywords:

Education, environmental awareness, crises management, new ecological paradigm.