Abstract
This study investigates environmental beliefs of students at the School of Forestry and Natural Environment (SFNE), Aristotle University, Greece, to ascertain whether or not their environmental education program is successful in enabling students to fulfill the goals of sustainability. Questionnaires were given to two groups of students, those in their third and those in their fifth academic year of study. For the study, the chi-square test and decision trees are used to analyze the responses. The students' beliefs about the interaction between environment, society, and environmental education (EE) are clustered to form groups with common beliefs and create a sustainable consumer profile. This categorization can assist educators in organizing a specialized curriculum to enrich EE sustainability programs. Student data is evaluated together with indicators of sustainability. The data highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the current SFNE environmental education program and presents targeted suggestions for improvement. Findings of the study lead to the conclusion that the EE curriculum needs to be redesigned if it is to target real-world factors that influence students' consumer habits and attitudes toward sustainability. In general, consumer habits are not the focus of environmental education despite its importance in achieving a sustainable planet, yet they need to be a focus of discussion in higher education as they are crucial indicators of sustainability. Environmental education needs to be reoriented and reorganized to fulfill the goals of sustainability.
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