CHILDREN'S ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND THE SPECIFICITIES OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

The environment is a fundamental pillar of sustainable development, but we notice, among us, negative behavior towards the environment, especially by children.We note, on the other hand, the existence of a social demand to spread environmental awareness and disseminate environmental knowledge.Since we assume that the reason for this behavior is related to low environmental awareness, we believe that raising the level of environmental awareness among children will contribute to preserving the ecosystem and facilitating the establishment of a healthy relationship between them and the environment.Awareness of environmental concepts may contribute to achieving maturity in awareness of the importance of the environment and, consequently, adopting behavior to preserve it.Accordingly, the research problem is framed within the relationship between the individual and the environment.The research objective lies in revealing the specificities of environmental awareness among children in the Moroccan educational context, and revealing the impact of gender, place of residence, and educational level variables on it.The study sample consisted of 400 male and female students, aged between 08 and 16 years (M=11.91,=2.47), equally divided between genders (males/females), place of residence (urban/rural), and educational levels (primary/preparatory).The environmental awareness scale, consisting of 48 items, was used, distributed over 6 dimensions.The results of the study concluded that there were no differences in the overall average of environmental awareness attributable to the interaction of the variables: gender, environment, and educational level, with an effect of the interaction of the three variables at the level of the dimensions: "guidance",