UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ INFORMATION SOURCES OF EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ISSUES AND THEIR PERCEPTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

Mass media consumption has expanded from traditional mass media – television broadcasting, newspapers, radio - into new media, such as the Internet. Information about environmental issues such as global warming, water and air pollution and other environmental problems, comes mainly from the media. In Finland nowadays the Internet is generally the most important source of news for young people. The media has also been used in a variety of ways relating to education for sustainable development. In the survey, education for sustainable development, students' opinions were asked on 73 items concerning different dimensions of education for sustainable development. This study focuses on two of these items: how university students from different disciplines get information about education for sustainable development issues and which environmental problems they perceive as being the most important. It was found that although students get information about education for sustainable development issues mainly from television and newspapers almost an equal amount comes from the Internet, and lectures are the fourth source of information. Students perceived climate change and the lack of clean water as being the most important environmental problems, the second was the decrease in biodiversity and the least important, malaria. Those students whose information source was mainly television did not perceive biodiversity as being that important environmental problem.