A closer look: Students largely have passion, yet lack awareness
By Genie Song
April 20, 2004 9:00 p.m.
UCLA students celebrating Earth Day on Thursday may find
themselves in a more environment-friendly setting than they would
if they were not on a college campus.
Whether it is due to the wide variety of classes offered on
environmental issues or campus organizations promoting awareness,
many professors, researchers and students agree that college
students are usually more knowledgeable about environmental issues
than the general public.
“I believe that most college students would characterize
themselves as more “˜pro-environment’ (than the average
person),” said Georgina Wakefield, a third-year English
student and the Environmental Alert project coordinator at UCLA for
CALPIRG, a public interest research group.
Victoria Sork, professor and chairperson of the organismic
biology, ecology and evolution department, said an explanation for
this is that students at UCLA do not really constitute a random
sample of the population.
“We’re all more sophisticated about the environment
(than the general public),” Sork said. “The baseline
knowledge about the environment is generally better
here.”
The wide range of subjects college students are exposed to may
be another reason for their higher levels of knowledge about the
environment.
“We really don’t understand environmental issues
unless we understand some of our other problems,” said Tom
Smith, director of the Center for Tropical Research in the
Institute of Environment and a professor in the OBEE department.
“College allows students to take courses in areas that help
promote understanding.”
According to Wakefield, many students who study political and
social justice start to take an interest in environmental studies
because they see that a lot of these issues are related, such as
environmental racism.
“A student who is interested in race issues would come to
realize that minorities often live in environmentally unsafe
areas,” Wakefield said. “This raises their
consciousness about environmental issues and creates this idea that
a lot of issues are connected.”
Although the college students’ environmental knowledge is
generally above average, most agree that the awareness level is far
from perfect.
“Most college students are aware that problems like global
warming and ozone depletion exist,” Wakefield said.
“But at the same time, students don’t stay aware of the
policies that perpetuate these things or the power behind the
special interests whose agendas are often at odds with progressive
environmental policies and even the larger public good.”
Another problem environmental advocates face is holding the
public’s interest and concern long enough to make a
difference.
“Smog in Los Angeles was getting better before, but now
it’s getting worse because of increased use of large
vehicles,” Sork said. “I guess people just forgot or
got tired of paying attention to it.”
Despite smog and other environmental problems facing the UCLA
community, many argue that the awareness level and concern of
students for environmental issues are insufficient and changes need
to be implemented.
“I prefer teaching undergraduate courses because (the
students) may not have the exposure to what some of these issues
are,” Smith said. “We all have to get involved, because
in the next 20 to 30 years, we are facing a crisis in the loss of
biodiversity.”
Some students feel there needs to be a stronger presence of
these issues on campus.
“The Pentagon just released this report about the
worst-case scenario that could play out from the effects of global
warming,” Wakefield said. “However, this report
wasn’t discussed at all on campus. … Students are still
very unaware and need to be educated.”
