High-school teachers lack teaching materials on environmental education and climate change issues, Greenpeace Taiwan said on Friday.
Greenpeace Taiwan distributed questionnaires to teachers across the nation for a survey titled “Taiwan Climate Change and Environmental Education.”
Among the 1,035 valid responses, more than 80 percent had a “low degree of satisfaction” with the environmental education teaching materials and textbooks that schools provide, the group said.
Huang Shang-ching (黃尚卿), project manager for environmental education at Greenpeace Taiwan, said that the survey was sent to high-school teachers of social sciences, biology, Earth science, geography and those who teach environmental education of their own initiative.
The rate of climate education in the north of Taiwan is higher than elsewhere, with 72.5 percent of respondents having such course material in Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, Huang said.
Among respondents with at least 20 years of experience, 76.6 percent had environmental curricula, compared with 57.5 percent among those with fewer than 10 years of experience, the survey showed.
“It is likely that teachers with more working experience have a better handle on the overall curriculum and the content of courses, so they have more time to teach extra lessons and run programs outside the regular curriculum,” Huang said.
“When these teachers are aware of the effects of climate change, they become quite supportive of teaching about it,” he said. “However, we also found that some are resistant to teaching about climate change and cross-disciplinary programs that require cooperation with other teachers.”
Most high-school teachers have concluded that most students lack interest in climate change issues and its immediate effects, the survey showed.
In follow-up interview with respondents, Greenpeace Taiwan said that it found that lack of interest was a result of pressure from families for students to achieve high grades, while other factors included the low cost of electricity, and an impression that climate change has not directly affected people.
Many teachers mentioned that when the weather is hot, the only solution students have is to tweak the air conditioner, Huang said.
“Teachers said that students know about climate change, but their personal lives are not greatly affected by it and they have not considered ways to mitigate it,” he said. “Taiwan has only taken the first steps regarding knowledge about climate change. People are aware of the effects, but understanding has not yet reached a deep and broad level.”
If environmental education does not bring about improved awareness and understanding, then when students finish school and lose contact with teachers, it becomes a fairy story for most, he said.
The low level of satisfaction with climate teaching materials is because the contents are brief and simplistic, while only four hours of teaching are required in a school year under the Environmental Education Act (環境教育法), making the subject a mere formality, Huang said.
Teachers are forced to go online or obtain materials from civil organizations, which further hinders climate change and environmental education, he said.
Greenpeace Taiwan said that it would propose a climate change and environmental education program for high schools to establish a platform for active learning and exchanges of ideas on the issue.
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