THE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ KNOWLEDGE AND BEHAVIORAL CHANGES: A QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY AT ONE PUBLIC JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN JAMBI CITY

This study aimed to identify the effects of teaching Environmental Education (EE) to youth and how teaching EE reflects long term appreciation for environmental awareness. More specifically, it aimed to explore students’ knowledge, attitudes, and actions towards environmental lifestyle as part of Adiwiyata program. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and they were audio taped, transcribed, and carefully analyzed. The study was designed as a qualitative design with a case study approach, and involved five teachers and nine students outdoor activities; based on curriculum and related to students’ daily behavior as the result of environmental education. Indeed, the finding of the study revealed four major themes concerned on the effect of the environmental education regarding to Adiwiyata program; recognizing recycled goods, safeguarding the environment and cleanliness, building awareness to pro environmental action, and fostering awareness to loving plants. DOI : 10.5281/zenodo.2582227 1.Introduction The idea of this research project emerged from the discussions during one of the classes in the master’s program in educational management. We were concerned about current environmental challenges that Indonesia is facing. Questions and worries raised during our discussions and led into consideration of changing young generation’s ecological behavior because human environmental conditions decreased from year to year caused by human activities to meet their needs. As a result, human faces environmental degradation and problems. Some issues on climate change, the decline of ecosystems, the depletion of the ozone layer, rapid population growth, forest degradation, increasing urbanization, acid rain, declining biodiversity species and natural habitats, as well as pollution (IGES, 2001). Some efforts have to be done to reduce or stop the environmental degradation and problems through a sustainable development strategy that can be integrated with the educational system at all levels, lines, and other types of education as education is the key agent of change in the context of implementation. For that purpose, the United Nations has proclaimed 2005-2014 the ―”Decade of Education for Sustainable Development with the overall goal of ―integrating the principals, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning” [UNESCO, 2005, p.1]. International Proceeding ASEAN YOUTH CONFERENCE 2018 PPI-MALAYSIA ISSN: 2599-2643 http://ppi-malaysia.org/ Copyright © 2019. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 644 Regarding the United Nations’ Education for Sustainable Development, Indonesia has not specified an explicit commitment to the Environmental Education (EE) program to teach the next generation about sustainable practices. However, in elementary and secondary schools, the Environmental Education (EE) is rooted in the subjects such as Science and geography. Also, the national education dedicates to all aspects of national development, especially the development of human resources corresponding to the demands of development in the context of globalization. Additionally, some classes at specific schools describe themselves as “sustainable” in either syllabi or course descriptions and each of these schools has a longstanding reputation as a green school. The importance of Environmental Education has become concerns by some authors such as Stepp, Bennett, and Bryan [1969, p. 30] who defined, “Environmental education is aimed at producing a citizenry that is knowledgeable concerning the biophysical environment and its associated problems, aware of how to help solve these problems, and motivated to work towards their solution. ” Additionally, international definition was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization [UNESCO, 1975, p. 10], “The goal of environmental education is to develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations, and commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions of current problems and the prevention of new one. ” According to Clayton and Myers [2009], three main aspects involve in environmental education goals, namely cognition, affect, and behavior. In terms of the cognitive aspect, it includes knowledge of ecology and awareness of environmental problems. For the affective aspect, it includes motivation to change, emotional attachment, and feeling that “one can make a difference and commitment to continue one’s effort” [Clayton & Myers, 2009, p.182]. In terms of Behavior aspect, it includes green consumerism, proenvironmental policy support, citizenship behaviors, activism, land management choices, collective actions and so forth. In relation with the United Nations’ Education for Sustainable Development and the importance of Environmental Education as Clayton and Myers [2009] discussed above, however, in Indonesian context, Environmental Education has not become an integral part of school curriculum. This situation may lead children not to grow up as socially and environmentally responsible citizens although children’s environmental values and attitude might be affected by their surrounding society, especially by the closest family members. However, one of the junior high schools in Jambi focused of this study has claimed as a –go-green school. In order to see the broader view of how environmental education works in this school, in particular, what effects of environmental education through Adiwiyata Program has on students by looking at their knowledge, attitude and actions towards environmental lifestyle. 2Purpose and Significance The purpose of this study was to find out the effects environmental education through Adiwiyata Program that the students have by looking at their knowledges and behavioral changes towards environmental lifestyle. Under these circumstances, based on a fieldwork, this thesis attempts to deepen the current International Proceeding ASEAN YOUTH CONFERENCE 2018 PPI-MALAYSIA ISSN: 2599-2643 http://ppi-malaysia.org/ Copyright © 2019. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 645 knowledge of environmental education in schools. The information gathered in this paper might be useful for scholars interested in similar research due to very few previous studies written in English about environmental education in Indonesia. 3.Methods In this research, a qualitative design with a case study approach was used to explore students’ knowledge, attitude and actions towards environmental lifestyle as part of Adiwiyata Program. In selecting participant, we purposefully planned to recruit all the last years’ students and all teachers and to get access. In this study, a purposeful sampling with a convenience case strategy was used in which researcher can access and easily collect data [Creswell, 2007]. Furthermore, a semistructured interview was conducted individually with each student and teacher based on their availability and location of the teacher chose. In analyzing the data, all the transcripts among participants analyzed and compared to search similarities and differences. The transcripts were reread line-by-line in order to find regularities and emerging themes and subthemes among the data. Once all the interview data coded and analyzed, we started to identify how themes and sub-themes help me to explain our research question. During this process, we removed or reduced overlapping and repetitive data. However, to establish the “trustworthiness” [Lincoln & Guba 1985, p. 300] or to verify the accuracy of data, findings, and interpretations [Creswell, 1998], the researcher completed the following procedures. First, this research undertook prolonged engagement and repeated interviews [Creswell, 1998 & Merriam, 1998]. Second, we triangulated data through multiple interviews. Triangulation is “a procedure using multiple sources of data to see whether they converge to provide evidence for validating interpretations of results” [Perry, 2005, p. 251]. Third, member checks were used in order to get participant feedback on the accuracy and credibility of the data, findings, interpretations, and conclusions. 4. Findings and Discussion The Program and Its School Adiwiyata is a program of the school that embodies insightful and caring environment. It means a good place and ideal which can be obtained all the science and norms and ethics that can be the basis for the creation of human well-being and toward the ideals of sustainable development.According to the interview data reported by the head of Adiwiyata program, there are four major steps in realizing Adiwiyata School presented in the following table. International Proceeding ASEAN YOUTH CONFERENCE 2018 PPI-MALAYSIA ISSN: 2599-2643 http://ppi-malaysia.org/ Copyright © 2019. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 646 Table 1. Four Major Steps in Realizing Adiwiyata School Steps Subject Matter 1. Policies that favor and embodied in the form of vision and mission Vision contains implementation (taqwa, cultured, superior, and environmental and global) The vision embodied in the form of a mission related to the environment Plans put in the form of school work plan Schools should commit to provide a minimum of 20% of the budget 2. Making education the curriculum of environmental Three models: integrated, specialized specific