AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS AMONG PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS IN A PHILIPPINE UNIVERSITY

The study involves eighty-seven (87) pre-service teachers with specializations in biological sciences and physical sciences in Leyte Normal University. They were the respondents of this study because it aims to provide pre-service teachers the competencies; they need to perform the roles of a professional teacher. The focus of this study is on the assessment of the respondents’ awareness and understanding of the different environmental principles and concepts. The research method used in this study is descriptive evaluative. The instrument used was from Part IIB and Part III of the Assessment Tools for Project 4: Mainstreaming of Environmental Education in Teacher Education Curriculum. This is one of the projects in the Establishment of the BU-DENR Environmental Education Learning Resource Center for the National Network of Normal Schools (3NS). The results of the study showed that the awareness and understanding of the pre-service teachers on the environmental principles were good. Also, the findings revealed that the level of the students’ understanding of the different environmental concepts was moderately high.