Teruaki OHNISHI, Wa' il R.TYFOUR* and Yasuo ITO †
College of Mining and Environmental Engineering, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University
† Institute of Science and Engineering for Society, Japan
Various environmental problems are now major issues to be solved for all countries. It is, therefore, a significant matter for us university persons with what philosophy and methodology we should advance hereafter the environmental research and education in the university. In relation to this, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University has promoted a project to make clear how and to what extent the students ' environmental cognition differs among countries under different social conditions, selecting, at the beginning, Japan as for the country to be compared with Jordan. Social surveys on the environmental cognition of the university students in these two countries have been carried out in this context. This report shows their summed up results.
3. RESULTS
___3.1 What beliefs and values do they hold ?
___3.2 What extent of knowledge do they hold ?
___3.3 How do they recognize about the environment ?
___3.4 What are the environmental problems for them ?
___3.5 To what extent do they feel responsibility for the problems ?
___3.6 To what extent do they feel the problems as their own ones ?
___3.7 How much money do they compensate for the environment ?
___3.8 What do they want to know about the environment ?
The growing manifestation of global environmental problems, such as the global warming, the ozone layer destruction and the desertification, is the serious concern for all countries. Rapid growth of population in developing countries and its resultant stress to the environment also become serious, as we see an example such that the growing population pressure makes tropical rain forests into the slash-and-burn farming land, causing the deforestation in the tropical region and the extermination of various biological species. In this context, the environmental problem is now one of the most significant issues immediately to cope with for us all.
In making policies for the environmental problems, it is important to grasp in advance the state of public ' s cognition on the environment. In providing information to obtain public support for the environmental policies, it is also important to know how the public feel for the environment. Thus, the grasp of the environmental cognition of the public is necessarily required not only for the administrative point but for the point of public relations. Also in determining the policies regarding the environmental research and education in the university, there exits a similar situation to that. Namely, the grasp of the cognition of young people in the state of education is important in the respect that it gives indispensable information in making guidelines for the environmental research and education.
From such a point of view, this study has carried out the cognitive survey on the environment for the university students in Jordan , intending to offer the fundamental data for promoting the environmental research and education in the university. Also by carrying out the survey in other countries, it is expected to make clear the difference of environmental cognition which may differ depending on the difference of each societal culture. Here we select Japan in the beginning of this project as the country to be compared with Jordan . By comparing the results from these two countries, it is also expected to provide a hint for the environmental research and education hereafter, which should be intrinsic to each country depending on its culture.
The surveys were made for the university students in Jordan and Japan as subjects during the period from July to August in 2005 by using the questionnaires with the same contents as each other. Although various types of social surveys on environment have been carried out in Japan , the survey of this sort seems to be the first time for the student (or the adult) in Jordan .
The questionnaire is consisted from about 60 questions which are categorized into the scientific knowledge in general, the environmental knowledge, the importance of environmental problems, the relation between the subject ' s action and the problems, the monetary value of the environment, the range of the environment, the source of the environmental information, the environmental problems they desire to know more in detail, and so on, together with the attributes of the subject. Almost all these questions are made in the same form where answers are to be selected from seven choices. They were prepared in Arabic for the Jordanian and in Japanese for the Japanese.
Both versions of the questionnaire in Arabic and Japanese have the same contents and the same design as this English version. The questionnaires were distributed to students in the classroom, and the filled ones were recovered and classified. Following universities were targeted in each country.
• Jordan
Irbid University (Irbid)
University of Jordan ( Amman )
Mu ' tah University (Al Karak)
Al-Hussein Bin Talal University (Ma ' an)
Total samples recovered from four universities amounted to 495, ranging 100 ~ 200 samples from each university. In all samples, 272 subjects are of the male whose average age is 21.0, whereas 218 subjects of the female with the average age 20.9 (unknown gender for 5 samples). The number of students belonging to the field of science and technology are 174 for the male and 103 for the female, the rest belonging to the field of humanity and social sciences, and others.
• Japan
Hachinohe Technical College ( Hachinohe City in northern Japan )
University of Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolis in middle Japan )
Science University of Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolis in middle Japan )
Nihon University (Tokyo Metropolis in middle Japan )
Yamaguchi University ( Yamaguchi City in southern Japan )
In these universities, Science University of Tokyo and Nihon University are the private university, the rest being the national university. The total number of samples recovered from those five universities is 263, ranging 20 ~ 140 samples from each university. In those samples, 222 subjects are of the male with an average age 20.6, and 41 subjects of the female with the average age 20.2. Almost all students belong to the field of science and engineering. The relatively small number of samples in Japan is mainly due to the period of summer vacation when this survey was carried out.
The standard deviation of the result is about ± 4.5% in Jordanian samples and about ± 6% in Japanese samples, thus they also indicating the uncertainties of the results by one standard deviation. In the case when the difference of the results between two countries exceeds about 10%, therefore, it can be regarded as a meaningful difference between the results by more than one standard deviation. The results will be shown in the next section.
3.RESULTS (see the results page)
In western countries, the solution of not only the domestic environmental problems but the global ones is placed as an important issue to be tackled hereafter. Also in Japan , the policy for those problems does not differ from those countries. The Ministry of Environment in Japan enacted the law in 2003 regarding “ the enhancement of enthusiasm for the environmental conservation and the promotion of environmental education ” . According to this law, the Japanese government has now an attitude to vigorously push forward the social education of environment for the adults belonging to various social organizations and private companies, together with the school education and voluntary activities for the environmental conservation by children.
The environmental problems in Japan until about twenty year ago were almost limited to the local-scale environmental pollution. It is in the last twenty years in Japan that the growth and expansion becomes to be pronounced in the thought of environmental conservation. The environment in this case is equivalent to nature in meaning. The thought of “ conservation and protection of nature ” now becomes to be a universal consensus of all Japanese. It is not too much to say that not a day passes that any mass medium does never report such a sort of environmental topics.
According to such a Zeit geist or a time spirit, the paradigm of the research and education on the environmental problem has been changed from the local environmental pollution to the conservation of global environment in almost all Japanese universities. The conservation of nature and global environment now becomes to be one of the slogans common to all universities to such an extent that their direction in research and education can be almost expressed by a few key words such as “ environment ” , and “ international ” and “ information ” , the latter two being the other prevalent thoughts at present. The environmental cognition of Japanese students has grown up under such a condition of social environment .
On the other hand in Jordan , the problem on the environment can be said to be in the intermingled state of the local-scale environmental pollution and the global environmental problems. Moreover in Jordan , information environment made by the news media is considerably weak not only in the field of environmental problems but in almost all fields. The environmental thought follows, in general, an Islamic doctrine so that the environmental problems are mainly interpreted according to the Islamic education. Such difference in the society, the culture and the educational system between Jordan and Japan possibly lead the difference in the environmental cognition of the students.
To consider the environmental problems in respective society, and to research them and to educate students in the university, the methodology intrinsic to each society must be searched and established. The result of our survey is hoped to offer one of the fundamental data for that purpose.