Environmental Education An Essential Tool for the Attainment of Sustainable Development Goals in the 21st Century Nigeria

Goals in the 21st century Nigeria. The study made use of five research questions and five hypotheses. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of the entire 209 Science and Environmental Education students in University of Abuja for 2016/2017 session which was used as sample for the study. The research instrument used for data collection was a 26-item questionnaire, rated on a 5-point Likert scale, with response options of Strongly Agree (SA); Agree (A); Neutral (N); Disagree (D); and Strongly Disagree (SD). The statistical methods employed in analyzing the research questions were, Mean (x̅) and Grand Mean (gx̅) while Chi-Square was used to test the hypotheses, generated at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that EE has created the needed awareness and provided quality training towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, which include prevention of activities causing climate change, disaster safety measures, controlling of negative anthropogenic activities on the environment, and challenges associated with overpopulation in the 21st century Nigeria. Based on these findings, the following were recommended among others: Environmental Education should be taught as a main subject at all levels of education, beginning from the primary level to tertiary level in Nigeria. Nigerian teachers, at all levels should be given quality training on the importance of EE and the benefits associated with the achievement of the SDGs which in turn will enable them to impart same to their pupils/students. Nigerian government should implement existing policies on population to help reduce population growth without any political, religious, and ethnocentric sentiments and colorations.