隨著經濟成長，各種環境問題一一浮現，提升環境知識是解決環境問題的首要條件。然國家經費有限，如何將有限的經費發揮最大的功效，是推廣環境教育時必需考量的。國外研究顯示，民眾環境知識的落差有規律可循，尋找這些規律是利用有限經費提升國民環境知識的首要之務。本研究以測驗問卷的方式，探討大一學生環境知識與其各項背景因子間的關係。問卷的回收率為78%，調查結果顯示，環境工程學系學生的環境知識違高於其它科系的學生。這可能是選讀環工系的同學原本就比較關心環境問題，也可能是大學教育發揮了效果。調查亦發現成長於城市的學生環境知識優於成長於鄉鎮的學生，此可能與其對環境品質要求以及資訊流通程度的差異有關。此外，男女學生環境知識並無差異，此或可歸因於男女學生在中小學所接受的環境教育幾無差別所致。在家長的年齡、經濟、教育及職業等因子中，惟一與受測者環境知識有明顯關係的是母親的職業。母親為專職家庭主婦的受測者，其環境知識遠高於其他受測者。家庭主婦的家庭教育功能，值得肯定。在各項問題中，受測者在與生活直接相關且環保署長期監測的空氣與水污染方面表現較好。而在能源及森林相關問題的表現最差，以此不足的知識來處理對臺灣未來環境有深遠影響的核能問題以及關係著全人類未來的熱帶雨林砍伐問題，後果實在令人擔心。相關單位應重視此一現象，依民眾環境知識的差異，對環境知識最不足者給予特別的加強。

Various environmental problems become prominent as a result of rapid economic development in Taiwan. Promotion of environmental knowledge is a prerequisite for resolving environmental problems. Studies indicate that there are c1ues in variations of environmental knowledge among citizens of different backgrounds. Finding these clues is essential for maximizing the effectiveness of limited educational resource. We use questionnaires to investigate factors related to freshmen's environmental knowledge. The returning rate of our questionnaires is 78%. The results indicate that students of the department of environmental engineering have much better environmental knowledge than students of non-environmental science related departments. Possibly, students choose the department of environmental engineering because there are interested in environmental issues and, therefore, their environmental knowledge was better than others. Alternatively, the environmental engineering departments effectively enhanced the students' environmental knowledge in less than one semester. We found that students grown up in cities have better environmental knowledge than students grown up in counties. This is likely to be related to the differences in their expectation on environmental quality and the accessibility of environmental information. Unlike studies of other countries, we found no gender difference in environmental knowledge. Although social expectations on males and females are different, the equal and almost identical environmental education between male and female in high school might have overcome social constrains. Among the factors related to parents' background including education, economic status, age and occupation, mother's occupation is the only one that has impact on student's environmental knowledge. Full time housewife's children perform much better than other students. Students perform well on water and air pollution questions. Possibly because those issues are directly connected to daily life and are under long-tern monitoring by Environmental Protection Agency. In contrast, students' knowledge about energy and forest resource is very limited although both issues have profound impact on environmental quality.