When asked to rank what was most important to them children across the world chose watching TV and playing video games ahead of saving the environment, according to an Airbus survey of 10,000 children from ten countries. Forty percent of children ranked watching TV and playing video games as most important to them, while 4 percent put ‘saving the environment’ as number one. Nine percent of the children chose protecting animals as their top choice.
Funded by Airbus, the survey, as apart of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), sought to uncover children’s opinions about the importance of the environment and biodiversity.
“The survey confirms the alarming disconnect of our children with nature and calls for urgent action to close this growing gap between tomorrows citizens and their natural heritage,” Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the CBD, said in a press release.
However, the study also found that many children enjoyed spending time outside. Thirty percent of the children surveyed listed playing outside as their favorite activity.
When asked what type of species they would like to save perhaps not surprisingly 50 percent of children pointed to mammals, 23 percent reptiles, six percent plants, and less than one percent chose insects. Fifteen percent of the children did not know what ‘endangered species’ meant.
One thousand children, ages 5-18, were surveyed in each of these ten countries: the UK, France, Germany, Spain, United States, Japan, China, Mexico, Singapore, Australia.
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