Environmental Education Integrates Individuals’ Nature-Connectedness to Improve their Health Conditions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55737/psi.2025d-44116Keywords:
Environmental Education, Nature’s Connection, Secondary School Level, Students, Teachers, Physical Health, Mental HealthAbstract
Extensive development of technological, household, and entertainment equipment, online studies, and remote jobs have vastly altered humans’ lifestyles that restrict regular nature exposure and outdoor activities, promoting a confined living standard. This reduced contact puts adverse effects on individuals’ well-being. In contrast, appropriate nature-connectedness is immensely advantageous for humans’ physical and mental health. Therefore, this study discusses the impacts of natural environment on individuals’ well-being that could be successfully accomplished through Environmental Education because it incorporates natural environment in its sessions. This interrelatedness subsequently impacts students’ health conditions. So, the study is designed to investigate teachers’ perceptions regarding this matter. A cross-sectional, parallel exploratory research is used. The sample is teachers of secondary level (6 – 10) schools of North Karachi, 100 for quantitative data; selected through simple random sampling, 50 for qualitative data; selected through purposive sampling. Likert scale (five-points) and interview questions are designed for data collection that are analyzed through one-sample t-test on SPSS (Version 20) and thematic analysis respectively. The results show 29.149 and 30.001 t-test results against 1.984 critical value and allude towards the significance of EE, and a unanimous acceptance of utilizing EE to interact students with the natural environment to improve their health states.
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