Abstract:

Environmental pollution and awareness issues are recognised as one of the major components of the global environmental crisis. This study tries to design and develop the effective program in order to enhance the environmental pollution and awareness among the school students in Malaysia. Young Environmental Scientist (YES) Program was designed in order to bring all the students to gains new experience how the scientist did their research in identifying the environmental pollution problems. This program was involved 120 secondary school students (form four), five teachers and two researchers from university. The study areas were located in Jeli District, State of Kelantan. In this program, the assessments of river water quality were chosen as a case study. The application of in-situ measurement and the determination of bio-indicator scores based on an animal trail was designed as field sampling activities. The five selected water quality parameters namely dissolved oxygen (DO), suspended solid (SS), turbidity (Tur), electrical conductivity (EC) and pH was measured using YSI probe. For the assessments of water quality using bio-indicator technique, the match-observed animal based on animal trail catalogue were applied. The results shows, all the participants clearly understand in the determination of surface river water quality by using the in-situ measurements and bio-indicator techniques. Finally, we have found that, YES program was successfully delivered the knowledge among the students and also increase their knowledge in environmental protection and prevention. This program hope can be inspired among Malaysian school students in the environmental pollution and awareness.

Keywords:

Young environmental scientist, water quality, pollution, awareness.