Climate change has a wide range of phenomenon and impacts, and it is related to elements surrounding human beings, so the education on natural phenomenon such as climate change is very important. Especially, the scale and causality of climate change i...
Climate change has a wide range of phenomenon and impacts, and it is related to elements surrounding human beings, so the education on natural phenomenon such as climate change is very important. Especially, the scale and causality of climate change is not clear, so the appropriate teaching method is needed for each object and age in climate change education. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to examine suitability of terms used in climate change education for children and to prepare for appropriate terms of climate change education for children.
Detailed research problems to achieve the purpose of the research are as follows; first, what is the essential contents of climate change education? Second, what are the existing concepts or terms of climate change education in childhood education? Third, can children understand concepts or terms used in climate change education?
The research results and discussions for each research problems are as follows.
First, as a result of examining various phenomenon and major characteristics of climate change, effects such as uncertainty, complexity, totality, irreversibility, abstractness, etc. were interpreted comprehensively in cognitive development phase of children and environmental educational meaning, and consequently, it was discussed that verbalization is very critical because children in their kindergartner should experience senses. That is, as language is developed due to the change of action, and also there could be many cases in which language does not correspond to actions, appropriate terms and concepts should be used for each age group to teach spatio-temporally large-scale problems with various characteristics. Especially, it was discussed that the age group in kindergartner can establish a right educational view by using appropriate languages.
Second, through advanced researches on climate change education, I extracted various terms used in the contents of climate change education for children in four large categories such as 'phenomenon, cause, effect, response', and total 47 kinds of terms from 11 phenomenon, 9 causes, 13 effects and 14 responses were selected. Climate change education terms used as analysis criteria were extracted from case study on climate change education such as existing contents and elements found in advanced researches, climate change education textbooks for children, Nuri curriculum for children aged 3-5, green growth education program for children, etc.
Third, the survey was conducted on terms used in climate change education for 33 early childhood teachers and 163 children. After comparing teachers and children, it was found that there was a great statistical difference, and it means that discussions on the results that teachers overestimate children, climate change education for children is not appropriate, or children did not learn the contents on climate change yet will be needed.
Hence, in climate change education for children, it is difficult for them to understand concepts and terms causally, and even if teaching complicated subjects is not relatively effective, climate change education appropriate for cognitive ability of children is necessary because there is natural phenomenon such as climate change. Also, if causal explanation is difficult for children, and climate change education on the characteristics of various phenomenon is not appropriate, it is possible to lead them to misconception and negative recognition. Therefore, it is suggested that if concepts and terms are used suitably or used in the understandable range for children's cognitive level when conducting climate change education for young students such as children, it will be meaningful climate change education for children.
As a result of the research, I want to make proposals as follows.
First, in the research, the research object was set to over 3-year experienced early childhood teachers, but they have a limit in terms of perception, environmental educational contents and expertise, and also when surveying children aged 6-7, there was a limit on conducting a objective evaluation because individual Q&A was not carried out. Those limits can be supplemented through methods such as the consultation of experts in children and environmental education, various data analysis, etc.
Second, the research suggested the use of appropriate concepts and terms in climate change education, program utilization plans and furthermore, the research direction on climate change education for each object as well as children. Therefore, I proposed the research as the basic research on climate change education for children and detailed objectives and contents of climate change education for children.