Effect Of Climate Change Awareness Of Secondary School Students And Its Effect On The Environment

Effect Of Climate Change Awareness Of Secondary School Students And Its Effect On The Environment
Abstract
This study was carried out on the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment using some selected secondary schools in Umuahia Educational Zone, Abia State. The survey design was adopted and the simple random sampling techniques were employed in this study. The population size comprised of students in some selected secondary schools in Umuahia Educational Zone, Abia State. In determining the sample size, the researcher conveniently selected 200 respondents and 150 were validated. Self-constructed and validated questionnaire was used for data collection. The collected and validated questionnaires were analyzed using frequency tables, while the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistical tool. The result of the findings reveals the extent of secondary school students awareness of climate change is low. The study also reveals climate change has a significant effect on secondary school students, the extent climate change affect secondary school students learning environment is high and school location contributes to constant climate change in the school environment. Therefore, it is recommended that there is an urgent need for climate change awareness programmes to be organized for schools by Government to sensitize them on the dangers of climate change and its effects if neglected and not duly considered in their various schools. Government should start working by rendering help to schools in providing infrastructural facilities that would enable them meet the demands and challenges of this era of climate change. Disciplinary measures should be taken by Government upon any schools who fail to take cognizance of climate change or introduce strategies for curbing its effects in their respective schools.
Table of Content
Chapter One:
Introduction
- 1.1 Background of the Study
- 1.2 Statement of the Problem
- 1.3 Objective of the Study
- 1.4 Research Questions
- 1.5 Research Hypotheses
- 1.6 Significance of the Study
- 1.7 Scope of the Study
- 1.8 Limitation of the Study
- 1.9 Definition of Terms
- 1.10 Organisations of the Study
Chapter Two:
Review of Literature
- 2.1 Conceptual Framework
- 2.2 Theoretical Framework
- 2.3 Empirical Review
Chapter Three:
Research Methodology
- 3.1 Research Design
- 3.2 Population of the Study
- 3.3 Sample Size Determination
- 3.4 Sample Size Selection Technique and Procedure
- 3.5 Research Instrument and Administration
- 3.6 Method of Data Collection
- 3.7 Method of Data Analysis
- 3.8 Validity of the Study
- 3.9 Reliability of the Study
- 3.10 Ethical Consideration
Chapter Four:
Data Presentation and Analysis
- 4.0 Data Presentation
- 4.1 Analysis of Data
- 4.2 Answering Research Questions
- 4.3 Test of Hypotheses
Chapter Five:
Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation
- 5.1 Introduction
- 5.2 Summary
- 5.3 Conclusion
- 5.4 Recommendation
- References
- APPENDIX
- QUESTIONNAIRE
Chapter One
Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
One of the fundamental issues facing the world today is climate change. This is informed by the impact of the ever growing complexities in the world’s technological advancement witnessed as centuries passes by. According to Ekpoh (2009), Climate change is any long-term change in the patterns of average weather of a specific region or the earth as a whole. It is often seen to be natural or human- induced. This phenomenon has been observed to have serious deleterious consequences for the earth in the form of significant variations in regional climates, recurrent droughts, excessive heat waves, windstorms, killer floods, and so on. More so, National Research Council (NRC, 2011a) pointed out that a strong possible consequence of climate change is to negatively shape many aspects of life in the foreseeable future. Climate change is one of the greatest public policy issues of our time. In Nigeria for instance, noticeable consequences of climate change could be seen in areas such as intense thunderstorms, widespread floods and incessant droughts among others. Odey (2009) pointed out that climate change impacts pose great dangers with consequences such as desertification, sea level rise, flooding, water salination, among others.
These impacts could manifest in food security challenges, damage to infrastructure and social dislocation. Additional impacts include threatto health as rising temperature could bring about diseases such as chronic heat rashes, CerebraSpinal Meningitis (CSM), stroke, malaria and other related diseases. Climate change will affect every citizen, every part of our environment and our natural resources, and thus practically every aspect of our lives, our economy, our urban and sub-urban development patterns (Ekpoh 2009). Global concern regarding the devastating impact of climate change has emphasized the need for creating awareness and building community capacity for adaptation strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change. As pointed out by Naclimuthu and Vijayakumari (1993), the need of the hour is to make people sensitive towards nature through a strong programme of climate change awareness. Many research have been conducted concerning the understanding of climate change and global environmental problems. This is evidenced by the spate of conferences, campaigns, reports and researches by Climate change specialists and researchers who have repeatedly pointed out that the solution to climate change problem is climate change awareness, which requires education on climate change in order to enhance its proper understanding.
Climate change education deals on teaching people about the causes, effects and challenges of climate change. This requires that students of institutions have a good understanding of the complex interactions between climate and people (Hansen, 2010; Wise, 2010). Abundant recommendations have been made from the perspectives of learning strategies for students in implementing their institutional management strategy. These recommendations were made as a means enhancing students learning skills in the face of the climate change challenges. Some of them include: Project based learning, authentic scientific inquiry (ASI), Place-based learning, and Action-oriented education. The concept of project-based learning (PBL) emerged more than half a century ago as a pedagogy, which proclaims that students could learn much better through solving real-world problems (Thomas, 2000; Barron, 2003). PBL improves their problem-solving and collaboration skills and increases students’ motivation to learn as well. As a result, PBL helps students achieve better performance even with traditional academic tests (Strobel & Van Barneveld, 2009; Walker & Leary, 2009).
Education is seen as a tool of socio-economic development and the drive of change in different spheres of life. Given the world’s limited natural resources, rising population, and the looming challenge of climate change, sustainable development cannot be attained without education that equips learners with the skills needed to live healthy, safe, and productive lives while also safeguarding the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This has necessitated the need for focus to be drawn on the challenges of climate change on Education which must be made climate compatible and linked to sustainable development in order to meet the needs of the 21st century and beyond. Education has a key role to play in promoting, understanding and assisting individuals, the society and the government to make informed choices in relationto activities they take up. The classroom is said to be the most important unit of the educational system, as it is in it that all the policies of education are finally implemented (Emeh, 1990). Achieving quality education for all remains a pivotal goal for global development. Therefore there is every need to manage the classroom properly as this has serious consequences for the achievement of the school’s set goals as well as the global development goal. However, they mostly focused on school climate in addition to providing details on how school climate is associated with and/or promotes safety, healthy relationships, engaged learning and teaching, and school improvement efforts. Therefore, this study makes its contribution on the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The inherent danger of climate change at present constitutes one major global problem. In Nigeria, the consequences of climate change have started manifesting in form of desertification, drought, temperature rise, low agricultural yield, dry up of water bodies, flooding among others. To curtail these climate change consequences, climate related contents were infused into most secondary school curriculum. This infusion strategy was meant to create awareness and positive attitude towards environmental problems like climate change. However, the worry is that notwithstanding, the instructional effort in school to promote the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment, people tend to continue in perpetuating the acts that increase the rate of climate change. Indeed, studies have been done in some parts of Nigeria like Kaduna, Imo and Cross River states to examine the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment. The major worry of the study is that it appears that such crucial contemporary study has not been done in Abia State. This gap is what the present study intends to fill.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The general purpose of the study is to determine the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment in Umahia Education Zone.
Specifically, the study intends to;
- Ascertain the extent of secondary school students awareness of climate change.
- Determine whether climate change have a significant effect on secondary school students.
- Find out the extent climate change affect secondary school students learning environment.
- Ascertain whether school location contributes to constant climate change in the school environment.
1.4 Research Questions
- What is the extent of climate change affect secondary school students learning environment?
- Does climate change have any significant effect on secondary school students?
- To what extent does climate change affect secondary school students learning environment?
- Does school location contributes to constant climate change in the school environment?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
H0: climate change awareness does not have any significant effect on secondary school students.
Ha: climate change awareness has a significant effect on secondary school students.
1.6 Significance of the Study
The study will also be significant to the students, government, society and curriculum planners. The students stand a chance of benefiting from the study as it will present them opportunity to appraise themselves particularly on their level of climate change awareness and its effect on the environment. This will be possible because as the students will be actively involved in the study through responding to the items of the research instruments, they will understand (as they read through the items) the issues in climate change such its meaning, causes, effects as well as the positive attitudes needed for cautioning further increase and effects of climate change.
Finally The curriculum planners will also benefit from the present study. This is because the successful completion of the study will enable the curriculum planners to have the knowledge (through the students mean scores) of the climate change awareness and attitude of senior secondary school students. This knowledge will help the curriculum planners to determine if the senior secondary school curriculum needs to be revisited so that more contents that could help to raise the level of awareness and attitude of senior secondary school students on climate change will be added if necessary
1.7 Scope of the Study
This study will be limited to the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment. The study will cover the meaning of climate change, causes and effects of climate change as well as the strategies for promoting climate change in school. The study will be carried out in some selected secondary schools in Umuahia Educational Zone, Abia State. The respondents will be obtained from some selected secondary schools in Umuahia Educational Zone, Abia State.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
In the course of carrying out this study, the researcher experienced some constraints, which included time constraints, financial constraints, language barriers, and the attitude of the respondents. However, the researcher were able to manage these just to ensure the success of this study.
Moreover, the case study method utilized in the study posed some challenges to the investigator including the possibility of biases and poor judgment of issues. However, the investigator relied on respect for the general principles of procedures, justice, fairness, objectivity in observation and recording, and weighing of evidence to overcome the challenges.
1.9 Definition of Terms
Climate Change:
Measurable shifts in traditional climate patterns of a given place outside the normal range of natural climate variability attributed to anthropogenic factors.
Climate Change Awareness:
Teachers’ common knowledge and understanding of climate change.
Climate Change Education:
The type of education targeting attitudes and behaviour change towards sustainability, and which is able to help learners understand and interpret impacts of climate change
1.10 Organization of the Studies
The study is categorized into five chapters. The first chapter presents the background of the study, statement of the problem, objective of the study, research questions and hypothesis, the significance of the study, scope/limitations of the study, and definition of terms. The chapter two covers the review of literature with emphasis on conceptual framework, theoretical framework, and empirical review. Likewise, the chapter three which is the research methodology, specifically covers the research design, population of the study, sample size determination, sample size, and selection technique and procedure, research instrument and administration, method of data collection, method of data analysis, validity and reliability of the study, and ethical consideration. The second to last chapter being the chapter four presents the data presentation and analysis, while the last chapter(chapter five) contains the summary, conclusion and recommendation.
Chapter Five
Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations:
5.1 Introduction
This chapter summarizes the findings on the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment using some selected secondary schools in Umuahia Educational Zone, Abia State. The chapter consists of summary of the study, conclusions, and recommendations.
5.2 Summary of the Study
In this study, our focus was on the effect of climate change awareness of secondary school students and its effect on the environment using some selected secondary schools in Umuahia Educational Zone, Abia State. The study was specifically carried out to ascertain the extent of secondary school students awareness of climate change., determine whether climate change have a significant effect on secondary school students, find out the extent climate change affect secondary school students learning environment, and ascertain whether school location contributes to constant climate change in the school environment.
The study adopted the survey research design and randomly enrolled participants in the study. A total of 150 responses were validated from the enrolled participants where all respondent were students of some selected secondary schools in Umuahia Educational Zone, Abia State.
5.3 Conclusions
Based on the findings of this study, the researcher concluded that;
- The extent of secondary school students awareness of climate change is low.
- Climate change has a significant effect on secondary school students.
- The extent climate change affect secondary school students learning environment is high.
- School location contributes to constant climate change in the school environment.
5.4 Recommendations
Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations are proffered.
- There is an urgent need for climate change awareness programmes to be organized for schools by Government to sensitize them on the dangers of climate change and its effects if neglected and not duly considered in their various schools.
- Government should start working by rendering help to schools in providing infrastructural facilities that would enable them meet the demands and challenges of this era of climate change.
- Disciplinary measures should be taken by Government upon any schools who fail to take cognizance of climate change or introduce strategies for curbing its effects in their respective schools.

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