Ninth graders and climate change: Attitudes towards consequences, views on mitigation, and predictors of willingness to act

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to examine Finnish ninth graders’ attitudes towards the consequences of climate change, their views on climate change mitigation and the impact of a set of selected predictors on their willingness to act in climate change mitigation. Students (N = 549) from 11 secondary schools participated in the questionnaire-based study. The results show that the students experience climate change as a risk. Although these students find climate change mitigation relevant, there is room for improvement in terms of their own willingness to act. Interest in environmental issues, the perceived relevance of mitigation and views on the design and contents of climate change education are identified as important positive predictors of students’ willingness to act, which has implications for designing learning in climate change education.

KEYWORDS:

• Students
• global warming
• sustainable development
• climate change education, environmental education
• geography

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Högskolestiftelsen i Österbotten, Svenska kulturfonden, Aktiastiftelsen and Svensk-Österbottniska Samfundet.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.