Necessity of Environmental Education in Iranian Universities (Case Study: University of Tehran)

Environmental education and public awareness especially in developing countries is a way to conserve environment and natural resources and to decline development impacts. In this paper 300 students of B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. of University of Tehran were be asked. In every group, number of males and females were equal. After collection of questionnaires, the data were analyzed in Excel software. The results show that %21 of students don’t attend to the environment. Also %95 of students are interested in Ecotourism. According to the results, %88 of students alert others to conserve the environment. The results show that only %15 of students have a satisfactory level of environmental knowledge. Also only %18 of students always follow environmental News. TV and Radio are sources of environmental News of %54 of students. %39 of students use Internet to follow environmental News. Newspapers and magazines are choices of %6 of students. Also %1 of students are aware of environmental news through posters and brochures. %50 of students said that don’t have any lesson that associates to the environment in the university. According to the results %75 of students are agree with taking part in environmental courses. The results show that %53 of students are agree with passing environmental acquaintance lesson. The results show that female students have better results in 6 index(attention to environment, membership in NGOs ,interested in Ecotourism, Environmental knowledge, be agree with passing environmental acquaintance and be agree with passing environmental courses). But male students follow environmental News more than female students. Also Ph.D. and M.Sc. students have better results in whole of indexes in comparison to B.Sc. students. So To have an environmentally developed country it is necessary to extent environmental education programs in the universities especially for male and B.Sc. students