Teaching the role of forests in mitigating the effects of climate change using outdoor educational workshop

ABSTRACT

Background

It is now essential for students to learn in the science classroom about climate change and the part they can play in ameliorating its consequences. This requires science teachers to have a secure understanding of climate change.

Purpose

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a two-day outdoor educational workshop on preservice teachers’ awareness of climate change and the role of forests in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Participants

20 pre-service teachers voluntarily participated in the workshop.

Design and method

A one-group pre-and post-test design was used to investigate the changes in preservice teachers’ cognitive structures after attending the workshop. Data were collected using a word association test (pre and post) and participants’ reflection forms (post). The cut-off technique was used in analysing the word association test and thematic analysis was used in analysing participants’ reflection forms.

Results

The results indicated that the workshop stimulated preservice teachers’ cognitive structures and conceptual understandings of climate change. Moreover, they generally had positive opinions about the workshop activities, emphasizing that these increased their awareness and empathy skills. However, they also indicated a small range of negative factors including a lack of time, materials, and opportunity to debate, and being tired.

Conclusions

Non-formal outdoor learning programmes can promote learning and increase preservice teachers’ awareness with respect to climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• forests
• preservice teachers
• opinions
• word association test
• workshop

Acknowledgments

The data was derived from the project named ‘Educating on Climate Forests’ which was co-funded by Erasmus+ programme of the European Union under the grant number 2016-2-ES02-KA205-008331.

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union under the grant number [2016-2-ES02-KA205-008331].