Pre-service teachers’ opinions about a two-day climate change education workshop

Abstract

A two-day workshop was designed in order to increase awareness of pre-service teachers about the role of forests in adapting and mitigating the effects of climate change. In this workshop, five different activities were developed to reflect five sections, which are listed as forest strengths and weakness, general knowledge on climate change, the role of forests in climate change, forest policies and climate change and climate refugees, were implemented as part of project “Educating on Climate Forests.” The designed activities focused on increasing participants’ awareness about general knowledge on climate change, the adaptation and mitigation strategies in order to adapt living with climate change, the climate refugee situation, the importance of forest management and environmental conservation strategies and the destructive effects of deforestation. The present study investigated pre-service teachers’ opinions about the designed activities. Through the designed activities, participants had an opportunity to develop deeper insights into the role of forests in adapting and mitigating the effects of climate change. After each activity, participants’ opinions were gathered via written reflection forms. In general, the results revealed that participants thought the implemented activities were increased their awareness. Although they stated that they had time and material insufficiency, they proposed suggestions for improving the activities.

Keywords:

• Adaptation and mitigation
• awareness
• climate change
• climate refugees
• forests
• pre-service teachers