Abstract

Environmental sustainability is increasingly becoming an area of concern within higher education, pointing out the importance of enhancing the awareness and knowledge of environmental problems. This research paper focuses on the significance of environmental science education practice in creating sustainability awareness in higher education students. For this purpose, a quantitative and cross-sectional research design approach has been used with a structured questionnaire that contains 26 questions in six constructs, including Environmental Curriculum Integration, Experiential Environmental Learning, Environmental Awareness Activities, Digital Environmental Learning, Faculty Environmental Engagement, and Sustainability Awareness. The data set of this study includes 500 students' answers from various institutions, and the hypothesized relationships are tested with reliability, correlation, and structural analysis. The measurement results have revealed high internal consistencies with Cronbach's alpha between 0.904 and 0.947. According to the structural analysis, the highest positive impact was observed in terms of Environmental Curriculum Integration towards Sustainability Awareness (β = 0.259, p < 0.001), followed by Experiential Environmental Learning (β = 0.224, p < 0.001), Faculty Environmental Engagement (β = 0.179, p < 0.001), Digital Environmental Learning (β = 0.153, p < 0.001) and Environmental Awareness Activities (β = 0.110, p = 0.006). The model accounted for 44.3% of the variance in Sustainability Awareness (R² = 0.443). It can be concluded from the results that within the tested structural model, curriculum integration and experiential learning serve as primary drivers for enhancing student sustainability awareness