In this article, Sabina Mammadova gives an insight into why it's so important to be raising environmental awareness among your students, and shares some useful digital learning tools to help with lesson planning
The studies show that there is a connection between environmental beliefs and being willing on protecting the environment (Ambusaidi, Boyes, Stanisstreet, & Taylor, 2012).
According to the survey of “The Teaching the Future” (Teach the Future, 2021), there are some obstacles to training teachers on climate change and teaching environmental problems. The poll was based on Teacher Tapp (app for the survey), and more than 7500 teachers participated in this survey. The survey showed that 70% of teachers point out that they did not get any training on climate change, or ecological problems, only 5% of teachers notice that they had training on these issues. In addition, The Opinium survey presents the statistical result of teachers’ opinions about the importance of environmental awareness, they agree that sustainability and climate change issues should be obligatory in schools, however, they feel overloaded due to the current curriculum (Hoath, & Dave, 2022). Authors emphasize that secondary school educators have more experience in increasing carbon emissions, and interdisciplinary relationships between non-living and living things, but it also gives broad topics in cross-disciplinary teaching of climate and sustainability education for these teachers in comparison with primary school teachers.
Several reflections have been gathered from teachers in the United Kingdom, the analysis of the results shows that the education process tends to assimilate the information about the environment, however, it could be the knowledge, or skills for the environment (Glackin, & King, 2020). Dunlop and Rushton (2021) emphasize the importance of science as a core subject in teaching climate change, and sustainability to students, however, they also mention that the subject could teach more about taking action on environmental issues based on the feedback from teachers, and young people.
Sustainable development goals
Teachers can find the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Index, descending, or ascending levels of 17 goals in the Sustainable Development Report. UNESCO offers several resources for educators on SDGs. Resources are categorized into Early Childhood Care and Education, Primary and Secondary Education. After choosing the appropriate education level, you can find resources for lesson objectives, and teaching materials collected such as presentations, posters, reading material, lesson plans, toolkits, games, and videos here: https://en.unesco.org/themes/education/sdgs/material.
Possible improvements in enhancing environmental awareness by using digital tools in science classrooms
Although there are many studies, the research on using ICT, and research on measuring environmental awareness in Science classrooms remains limited. As the authors note earlier, more work is necessary to use digital technologies effectively in the education process and determine the effect of these tools on particular skills, and competencies on environmental issues. Most studies prefer to enhance students’ environmental knowledge through outdoor activities, however, digital tools give a broad opportunity to teach ecological issues even within the classroom.
References
Ambusaidi, A., Boyes, E., Stanisstreet, M., & Taylor, N. (2012). Omani students’ views about global warming: Beliefs about actions and willingness to act.
International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 21(1), 21–39.
Dunlop, L., & Rushton, E. (2021), A manifesto for Education for Environmental Sustainability: implications for science education, School Science Review.
Glackin, M., & King, H. (2020), Taking stock of environmental education policy in England – the what, the where and the why. Environmental Education Research, 26(3), 305–323.
Hoath, L., & Dave, H. (2022). Implementing a sustainability and climate change strategy. School Science Review.
Teach the Future (2021) Teaching the future: Research with UK teachers in the current state and future of climate education. https://www.teachthefuture.uk/teacher-research
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