Analysis of sustainability consciousness of junior high school students in science education

Abstract

Sustainability consciousness is an outcome of Education for Sustainable Development which was launched by UNESCO since 2014 to create a society with sustainable living behaviour. This study conducted on 148 junior high school students in Central Java, Indonesia. Their sustainability consciousness measured with Sustainability Consciousness Questionnaire adapted from the questionnaire developed by a group of Swedish researcher. The questionnaire measures the aspects of knowingness, attitudes and behaviours in economy, environment and society dimensions. The items are presented using Likert Scale with 5 ranks, from 1 "strongly disagree" to 5 "strongly agree". This study used descriptive research method which no treatment. The result shows the average percentage of their sustainability consciousness score is 77.5%. Meanwhile, the average calculation based on the aspects of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour shows the respective scores of 79.3%, 76.1%, and 76.7%. Then, the average score based on the social, economic and environment dimensions is 72.7%, 79.1% and 80.5%. From these data, it can be seen that the environmental dimension gets the lowest score compared to economic and social scores. Therefore, we need a learning strategy in science education that is appropriate to increase the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of students in the environmental dimension to create a sustainable society.