‘Human nature’: Chemical engineering students’ ideas about human relationships with the natural world

Abstract

While importance of environmental ethics, as a component of sustainable development, in preparing engineers is widely acknowledged, little research has addressed chemical engineers’ environmental concerns. This study aimed to address this void by exploring chemical engineering students’ values regarding human–nature relationships. The study was conducted with 247 3rd–4th year chemical engineering students in Israeli Universities. It employed the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP)-questionnaire to which students added written explanations. Quantitative analysis of NEP-scale results shows that the students demonstrated moderately ecocentric orientation. Explanations to the NEP-items reveal diverse, ambivalent ideas regarding the notions embodied in the NEP, strong scientific orientation and reliance on technology for addressing environmental challenges. Endorsing sustainability implies that today's engineers be equipped with an ecological perspective. The capacity of Higher Education to enable engineers to develop dispositions about human–nature interrelationships requires adaptation of curricula towards multidisciplinary, integrative learning addressing social–political–economic–ethical perspectives, and implementing critical-thinking within the socio-scientific issues pedagogical approach.

Keywords:

• chemical engineering students
• environmental worldviews
• NEP-scale
• sustainability

About the authors

Dr Daphne Goldman is a senior lecturer in the Department of Environmental Science and Agriculture at Beit Berl Academic College. Her main fields of interest in research focus on: environmental literacy in teacher preparation and higher education, theoretical and practical aspects of environmental education, environmental education in formal and non-formal frameworks.

Dr Orit Ben-Zvi Assaraf is a senior lecturer in the Science Education Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Her work in science education focuses on issues such as: Cognitive-based research into system thinking in the fields of Biology, Ecology and Earth sciences, and development of environmental literacy and nature conservation within science education.

Julia Shemesh is a MA graduate of the Science Education Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and a science teacher in High school. The study was conducted in partial fulfilment of the MA requirements.