Abstract

This paper reports on the compared views of and some attitudes towards the use of renewable energy technologies and some feedstocks for biofuels in a sample of the general public in the - North Eastern region of Thailand with a similar number of local secondary school students.The data collected provides a small snapshot into public opinion of socioeconomic, scientific and political factors that are relevant to the transition towards more renewable energy provision within Thailand. In addition to this, participants indicated which subjects they considered would be of value for school students to study in more detail to equip them with knowledge to make informed choices of their own.The results reveal some holes in the general public knowledge of government policy, as well as a few issues in their thoughts, which demonstrated that generally people are aware of the complexity of energy transition. Environmental ethical issues also ranked high in peoples’ opinions of topics for secondary school educational improvement. An adjunct to the results of the survey was carried out in 2013, with a partial analysis of a small repeat survey completed in July 2017. This gives a small insight into opinion trends - over a four year period. The findings of the pilot study provide some useful baseline data for a refined and larger survey of a wider section of the general public to help inform educational curriculum planners and RE community education programmes of some attitudinal barriers to learning.