Diagnostics of the level of formation of ecological culture of secondary school students
Authors: Chalova Olga 
Published: October 2023

The relevance of the research topic is due to the significant increase in anthropogenic activity, the increased attention of researchers to environmental problems, which proved the need to increase the level of ecological culture from an early age. The peculiarity of determining the level of ecological culture is its multicomponence, that is, it is necessary to determine the level of ecological knowledge, the level of ecological consciousness and environmental activity in order to obtain the level of ecological culture of the trainees. It is obvious that the concept of ecological culture has not gone unnoticed by researchers; some scientists interpret ecological culture as a part of universal human culture, others as a combination of three components (ecological knowledge, ecological consciousness and ecological activity). It should be said that it is possible to determine the level of ecological culture using various methods in accordance with the age characteristics of the study participants. The question of the definition of ecological culture remains debatable and is of significant interest to theorists of environmental education and practical teachers.
The purpose of this study is to determine the initial level of environmental culture of secondary school students, and in order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks: to analyze regulatory documents and scientific and methodological literature on the education of environmental culture of secondary school students; to consider the concept of environmental culture of students; to consider the psychological and age characteristics of adolescents 11–15 years old; to test students 5–9 classes to determine the level of environmental culture of students, analyze the results obtained; to give recommendations on further education of ecological culture of secondary school students. The object of this article is the education of ecological culture, the subject is the determination of the level of ecological culture of secondary school students.
The scientific novelty of the study consists in a comprehensive analysis of the level of formation of ecological culture of schoolchildren according to various methods (grades 5–6 according to the methodology of S.S. Kashlev, S.N. Glazychev «Diagnostics of the level of ecological culture of the individual», grades 7–8 according to the methodology of E.V. Asafova «Ecological culture of students», grade 9 according to the test of E.Yu. Lushnikova «Self-assessment of ecological culture»). As a result of testing, it is proved that the higher the level of environmental culture of secondary school students, the better the understanding of the need to deepen environmental knowledge for the development of consciousness and environmental actions.
To conduct a study to determine the level of environmental culture of secondary school students, the following methods were used: the method of theoretical analysis of pedagogical and scientific literature, the method of comparative analysis and testing.
The theoretical basis of the research was the publications of domestic authors, which consider the ecological culture of adolescents in secondary school and the education of ecological culture in general.
The practical significance of the research lies in obtaining the initial level of ecological culture of students, which can be used in pedagogical activities for greening the educational process and increasing the level of ecological culture of society as a whole. This research can also contribute to the development of fruitful cooperation between teachers of various disciplines of the natural sciences and humanities cycles.