engleski

The importance of technology in education for sustainable development

Environmental issues and problems of sustainable development are today the key topics of every community and society, which is why they should be an indispensable part of general and compulsory education. Given that technological knowledge needed to understand these problems and issues, it is clear that technology education is necessary to integrate into this education. However, the practice often shows that technology (technical) education neglected or completely excluded from this segment of education, as is the case in Croatia. In this context, a study of pupils' understanding of the relationship between technology with environmental issues and sustainable development was conducted. The research was conducted on a sample of pupils from 5thto 8thgrade (N = 1980) from Croatia. The results show that pupils generally consider technology important, but their answers indicate a lack of understanding of the connections between technology and issues of sustainable development and ecology. Complete misunderstanding refers to the issuesof water conservation, construction of facilities, waste management, and they mostly perceive technology as an environmental pollutant. A somewhat more acceptable understanding observed for issues of production, food and animal husbandry, and the role of technology in the well-being of the community. The findings show that pupils consider technology important on a general level, but the answers that require a deeper knowledge of technology show a lack of understanding of the importance and interconnections. This shows that learning of technology is an extremely important prerequisite for developing students' awareness of ecology and sustainable development issues and for understanding these issues.

ecology ; education ; sustainable development ; understanding of technology ; technology education

nije evidentirano