Environmental Awareness of Government and Non-Government College Students of Chandigarh.

The present investigation is carried out to study the Environmental Awareness of Government and Non-Government College Students of Chandigarh. The sample consisted of 200 (100 male and 100 female) govt. And non-govt. College students of Chandigarh. The investigator has used. Self-prepared standardized Environmental Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ) for collection of data. The data collected was processed for statistical analysis through a t-test. There was no significant difference between boy and girl college students with regard to their Environmental Awareness (EA). A significant difference in the EA scores was found in the government and non-government college students of Chandigarh at 0.05 level, which was in favour of non-govt. College students. Also, significant difference was found in the level of EA of college students living in the rural and urban areas of Chandigarh favouring the urban group.


Introduction
The word environment is derived from the French word 'environ,' which means to encircle or surround. Earth's environment can be defined as circumstances of conditions that surround an organis m, or it could be consideration of external or physical, social, and cultural conditions that effect growth and development of an organism. Webster's Dictionary (2001) defines environment as the aggregate of all conditions affecting the existence, growth, and welfare of an organism. Environment covers all the outside factors that have acted on the individual since he began life.
The term environmental Awareness has been used in environmental sociology and education since 1970. Environment Awareness may be defined as to help the social groups and individuals to gain a variety of experiences in and acquire a basic understanding of environment and its associate problems .
Environmental education is a process in which individual gain awareness of their environment and acquire and exchange the knowledge, values, skills, experiences, and also the determination which will enable them to act individually and collectively to solve present and future environmental problems." In 1991, The Supreme Court of India directed the states and other authorities to create environmental awareness among the students through the medium of education and ordered to strictly implement this under the supervision of the State authority.
The Supreme Court inter alias directed the UGC to take appropriate steps to prescribe a course on environment and consider the feasibility of making environment a compulsory subject at every level of college education. Now Environmental Education is a compulsory subject being taught at the undergraduate level.
Shahnawaj (1990) worked on the environmental awareness and attitudes (towards environmental issues) of secondary school teachers and students at Udaipur, India. He found out a very high level of awareness on the part of the teachers and students regarding the environment, and this were more in the urban than in the rural

Objectives of the Study
• To compare Environmental Awareness of boys and girl's students of colleges in Chandigarh.
• To compare Environmental Awareness of students studying in government and non-government colleges of Chandigarh.
• To study the Environment Awareness of rural and urban college students in Chandigarh.

Hypotheses
Following are the Hypotheses of the present study: • There exist no significant differences in the Environmental Awareness of girls and boys college students in Chandigarh.
• There exist no significant differences in the Environmental Awareness in the government and nongovernment college students in Chandigarh.
• There exists no significant difference in the Environmental Awareness of rural and urban college students in Chandigarh.

Design of the Study
Descriptive Survey Method of testing was employed for the present study.

Sample of the study
The population of the present study consisted of college students studying in government and nongovernment colleges in Chandigarh. Random sampling technique was employed to raise a sample of 200 students. Out of this, 100 students were drawn from government colleges of Chandigarh, consisting of 50 girls and 50 boys. Other 100 students were taken from non-government colleges of Chandigarh, consisting of 50 boys and 50 girls.

Tools used
For the purpose of collection and interpretation of the data the following tools were used by the investigator: • Environmental Awareness Questionnaire(EAQ) developed by the investigator.
• Self-developed proforma to collect demographic details.
Data Collection: Five government and five non-government colleges were selected for the data collection, and copies of the Environmental Awareness Questionnaire were given to them. The filled up questionnaires were collected by the investigator.

Analysis and Interpretation of Results
This section deals with the results of t-ratio to asses the significant differences among boys and girls, government and non-government college students, and rural and urban college students with regard to their Environmental Awareness(EA). The t-ratio 1.579 was not significant which means that girls and boys do not differ in their EA scores and the hypothesis stating that boy and girl students will not differ significantly in the EA scores was thus accepted and it is concluded that there was no significant difference with regard to EA of boys & girls studying in colleges of Chandigarh.  Table II it is clear that mean scores of govt. College students with regard to their Environmental Awareness was 27.72, and in case of non-government college students, the mean score was 29.05. Standard deviation of the above two groups was 3.571 and 4.305, respectively. The t-ratio turned out to be 2.378, which was significant, which means that govt. And non-government college students differ in their Environmental Awareness. The perusal of the mean scores reveals that non-govt. College students have higher environmental awareness than that of government college students.
The hypothesis stating that there will be no significant difference in the EA of Govt. and non-government college students stands rejected. . This means that students living in rural and urban areas of Chandigarh did differ in their Environmental Awareness in the present study and the differences are in favour of urban group students and Hypothesis stating that there will be no significant difference in the level of EA of students living in rural and urban areas of Chandigarh was thus rejected.

Overall conclusions of the study
The conclusions are given below: • There was no significant difference between boy and girl college students with regard to their Environmental Awareness • A significant difference in the EA scores was found in the government and non-government college students of Chandigarh at 0.05 level, which was in favour of non-govt. College students.
• Also, significant difference was found in the level of EA of college students living in the rural and urban areas of Chandigarh favouring the urban group.

Conflict of Interest
The author has no conflict s of interest to report.

Funding Statement
The author completed this research as part of their normal continuing professional development and scholarly activity.