Student Participation in the Earth Hour Event - Research Paper Example

Reading Header: RESEARCH PROPOSAL Your institution: Your name: Course name: Course instructor: April 7, 2010 TOPIC TITLE The topic title for this research is to identify on how the students of University of Western Sydney (UWS) understand and participate to the earth hour event. This study revolves around the study of relationship between the active awareness campaigns by the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) and the level of participation by the students of Australian Universities especially University of Western Sydney. BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION This study is to be conducted by the individual student with the assistant of few field staff in conducting interviews and giving out the questionnaires. The report would be adopted by the university and WWF in the assessing the success of the past efforts to enlighten the world on Earth Hour and in future planning. It is to be sponsored by the university and WWF since it’s an important part of global environmental conservation effort. The student of UWF is the main researcher and reporter and he has made it clear that the research would be about the reasons behind low participation of university students in Earth Hour, hence the research would be taken to establish whether lack of awareness is the main factor contributing to low participation The research paper would commence with an introduction that would outline the hypotheses/research aims and background of the study. Then the literature review which would postulate the prior research findings while the research design and methodologies would analyze the research methods, samples and respondents in the research. The next chapter would be an analysis of the data and the findings that would include the use of figures and percentages in tabular forms. Finally the conclusion would outline the research discussion, and implications of the findings. It would also provide the recommendations and implications of this conclusion to stakeholders of Earth Hour. PRELIMINARY/LITERATURE REVIEW Literature published previously that would be cited would include earlier studies that the University of Western Australia community had conducted about the causes of non participation of the students in the Earth Hour evens which have been taking place in the last four years both in the country and globally. Other previous studies that would be paramount include online research/study that had been published by Archives of Management Institute at the University of Western Sydney which had surveyed a section of student and found that a more than 30% of UWS students did not participate in the Earth Hour event and they did not turn off machines and electric appliances for one hour at the end of the day in the last. Although UWS has been active participant in the last three years, there are still some students who could not determine the essence of this initiative and therefore making its success questionable. UWS being among the largest universities in Australia is working together with WWF- Australia to investigate the success of Earth Hour in the country through a research initiative. The university already has taken responsible and practical steps to conserve energy and water. This includes tree planting to absorb greenhouse gases, recycling ink, toner cartridges and mobile phones. University of Western Sydney did participate in this year’s Earth Hour which is a grass root global initiative that informs and encourages businesses and households to alter their behavior and reduce their environmental pollution. This year’s event was held on Saturday 27th of March when organizations and individuals across the world switched off their non essential electrical appliances and light for an hour. UWS joined the rest of the rest of the organizations and individuals by putting off non essential lights across all its campuses and reminding their students and staff to switch off all electrical appliances and machines. UWS Vice Chancellor, Professor Janice Reid, said that she was very delighted that UWS continues to take a leading role in research and sustainability initiatives. He also highlighted on how UWS has been actively participating in Earth Hour over the last three years and urged the businesses and households across the Greater Western Sydney region to take part. He also confirmed that UWS will continue to take this active role in Earth Hour in the coming years by helping to bring about lasting and meaningful change in the attitudes of the people. The University is leading the way in groundbreaking climate change and renewable energy research. A unique $40 million dollar facility has been established at the Hawkesbury campus which will study the impacts of climate change and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations on world eco-systems. Clean renewable solar energy is also being put in to test for its possibility to provide energy and clean drinking water. Earth Hour has humble beginnings in Sydney in 2007. It has now grown to a global event involving millions of people in more than a thousand towns and cities. This year's event was asking people to assess their environmental footprint through use of the WWF - Australia ecological footprint calculator, which enables users to better identify areas where they can cut their energy use. Added to this, the University conserves the equivalent of approximately 3744 trees annually by reprocessing on average 156 tonnes of paper and 132 tonnes of cardboard. Run- off water is collected in water tanks and used at UWS campuses. In addition the university has been encouraging video conferencing and telephone instead of traveling by road, rail or air between the campuses because all this will be detrimental to the efforts of Earth Hour. Also new campus buildings are designed with ecological sustainable features and existing buildings are being modified to incorporate environmentally-friendly features. UWS also was the host of the country's first national youth climate summit last year branded, Powershift 2009, which further shows how the university is committed to lead the public debate on matters surrounding environmental sustainability. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH QUESTION/OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESES The research question of the report would be to find out and analyze the factors that would result in increased student understanding and participation the environmental sustainability both in and outside their campuses. The university is undertaking expansion programs of activities to conserve environment which is aimed to bring great changes in the global climate. These efforts are receiving approval from environmental agencies in and outside the country. The objectives of this research would be to assess the understanding and participation of UWS students to Earth Hour and the impact of their participation and how their participation can be enhanced. Another objective would be to assess the environmental benefits when more students are included in this campaign. This study would also examine whether the active participation of the university management in Earth Hour has got any impact on the student participation. This paper would also examine the new strategies that can be applied to include more students in the environmental upgrading and sustainability within and without the university’s campuses. The research hypotheses of this study would be to assess the understanding and participation of UWS to Earth Hour. What are the impacts on the environment since then and what more should be done to increase the awareness among the students. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The research sample that would be taken would involve 100 current students of University of Western Sydney. The methods that would be employed would be surveying through use of interviews and questionnaires, where the respondents would be issued with a questionnaire that would contain questions that would concern their understanding and participation in the recent past Earth Hour event. In addition, the researchers would be required to analyze and assess the impacts of both participation and non-participation of the students in the university’s participation. The respondents would be questioned on their understanding and improvement they would recommend to the university so that more student can join this cause.. They would also be required to list a number of the improvements that they would like to see in their next event. DATA ANALYSIS METHODS An analysis by the researchers would then be undertaken and would include the use of regression analysis to compute the propensities of student participation. The data findings would be analyzed scientifically in order to assess the causes of lack of student no participation. . In addition, environmental factors involving weather patterns and changes would also be considered in this analysis. The findings from this research would be provided in tables and would include aspects that would be associated with sizes of samples, customer profiles and the length of use/frequency and the correlation with participation. QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS/METHODS This research would also employ the use of qualitative methods of inquiry and is planned to be appropriated in various ways. This would enable researchers to obtain in-depth comprehension of students conduct and behaviour and reasons behind such behavior. The research would specifically employ this method in finding out what exactly make the students consider environment and related issues or otherwise and would be obtained through observation of body behavior of the customers; hence help verify the kind of changes needed to encourage more students to participate in Earth Hour.. Other qualitative methods that would be used include group discussions, reflection field notes, observations, pictures, analysis of materials and documents, unstructured interviews, reflexive journals etc. EXPECTED OUTCOMES The researcher expects to find out that the students from environment related courses of study are more likely to participate in the Earth Hour. It also expects to confirm that the student participation is highly pegged on their personality and active participation in other university events. The cost of non participation is also expected to be high in terms of money and time. Also it’s expected that the university and WWF awareness campaigns have impact on student participation. BUDGET The entire budget of the research project would be shouldered by the student concerned and the university. The student can source fund through WWF who will be interested parties in the use of the collected data. This research will help both UWS and WWF to draw strategic plans in increasing the number of those participating in Earth Hour. A larger proportion of the budget would go to primary research team who will go out and take samples using interviews and questionnaires. Questionnaires would also require money to develop; hence approximately $500 would be required for the completion of the entire research project as indicated below: Details Amount Development of questionnaires $100 Wages to field staff $200 Transport allowances $50 Lunch allowances $50 Contingencies and other costs $100 Total $500 TIMELINE AND RESPONSIBILITIES This research project is projected to take place within duration of two weeks from April 14 to April 28 and the samples would include the students of all UWS campuses. The primary responsibility of this project is vested on the researcher who is a student but with the assistance of supporting staff that will go to the field to conduct interviews and issue questionnaires. A credible expert like the lecturer would be sourced to help in the analyses of the data obtained during sampling. REFERENCE City of Sydney, 2007, Earth Hour-Always Earth: Sydney Media. WWF-Australia, 2010,  Now is the hour to tackle global warming, wwf.org.au. Vancouver sun, 2010, Earth Hour won’t affect essential Canucks game, http://www.vancouversun.com University of Western Sydney, 2010, UWS joins Earth Hour for the fourth year ww.pubapps.uws.edu.au/news/index. Read More