Study of environmental awareness, practices and behaviours among UniMAP students

Environmental awareness has received much attention in recent years due to human population growth, even though science is improving every day. Still, that improvement comes with risks that can be avoided with a little bit of knowledge. Understanding the public’s environmental awareness is essential to inform government approaches to addressing this issue. This study presents a cross-sectional survey of young generations, Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) students between the ages of 20 and 25, to examine the perception, awareness and opinions of Malaysian students about the environment. The survey consisted of three sections, which included information on socio-demographic information, information on public perception of the environment, information on public awareness of the environment and its related impacts, and information on environmental attitudes and recommendations to address some of the related environmental issues. The results show that the value of environmental awareness and knowledge is good, which indicates that there is a high level of knowledge and awareness among university students. Of the 107 respondents, more than 70 per cent were positive and had an adequate level of environmental awareness, and 60 per cent showed positive environmental practices and behaviours.