Climate Change Awareness and

Education Paul Carr

Supervisors TCD/ UCD: Dr. Conor Buggy, Dr. Gayle McGlynn

Supervisor DUCE: Dr. Emiliana Mwita

Additional Researcher: Yunwen Bao

Research Aims & Objectives

5 year climate change awareness and education project.

Stage 1: Student and Lecturers in teacher trainer college (DUCE) - 2014

Stage 2: Students and teachers in a DUCE affiliated secondary school - 2015

Aim:

Identify the current level of understanding of climate change

Identify the strengths and weaknesses of current climate change education

Objective:

Inform the creation of a future education package for DUCE students on CC

Can be used as ‘pre-implementation’ data and compared with ‘post-implementation’ data in future.

May be relevant in other sub-Saharan African countries

Research Question

What is the level of awareness of climate change among secondary school students

in a developing nation urban school?

Sub Questions: What are students’ current misconceptions about

climate change? What are students’ personal views and attitudes

towards climate change? How/ Where do students currently get information

about climate change? How is climate change taught in the classroom?

Participants’ ProfileMale Female

148 136

Climate Change Knowledge

Cutting down trees causes climate change – 90% correct

Students identified correctly the effects of climate change on weather (85%), flooding and droughts (73%) and the spread of disease (74%)

Climate means average weather – 30% correct

Damage to the ozone layer causes climate change – 90% incorrect

Burning fossil fuels causes climate change – 45% correct

Agree Neutral

Disagree

It is already too late to do anything about climate change

10 18 72

All countries should help each other to stop climate change

89 7 4

The Tanzanian government should do more to stop climate change

90 6 4

I want to learn more about climate change at school

87 11 2

Humans have a big effect on climate change 87 8 5

Attitudes towards Climate Change (%)

Sources of Climate Change Information (n=276)

Teacher InterviewsPersonal views on climate change education and teaching

All agreed teaching about climate change is crucial in schools.

Syllabus and teaching materials are inadequate and outdated.

“The content, especially in ordinary level, is very shallow.”

Some Geography teachers do not teach about climate change, despite the topic being part of the syllabus

“No, I don’t teach about climate change… Nowadays there is no topic of climate change (in geography)… It depends if the teacher is educated on the topic if they will teach it.”

Lesson development, teaching methods, books and additional materials that teachers use varied widely and is very teacher centric.

“I never depend on the syllabus to guide the content of the class. I depend on my own knowledge”

Conclusions & RecommendationsStrengths: Regionally relevant, non-scientific knowledge – Extreme weather, deforestation, industry, spread of disease

Weaknesses: Scientific knowledge – GHGs, acid rain, ozone layer, climate & weather, fossil fuels

Gender?

Positive outlook with sense of agency

Context of Tanzanian education system – capacity, attendance, materials, teacher training, language

Context of a broader system of information dissemination in urban environment

“what it is that each individual has reason to value” (Unterhalter, 2005, p28)