EVALUATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS AND EXISTING KNOWLEDGE GAPS IN PUBLIC SECTOR COLLEGES OF ISLAMABAD

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most fatal threats to the world existence. Education through curriculum has a key role to develop the right kind of attitude and effective awareness towards climate change. Apropos Pakistani context, proper education can decrease the effects of climate change along with other steps. The objectives of the study were to analyze climate change awareness among students and teachers of Islamabad and identification of gaps in their knowledge. To achieve the objectives, the study conducted a descriptive survey. The stratified random sampling technique was used to get the opinion of 320 students and 80 teachers in public sector colleges of Islamabad at the secondary level through questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used to review the curriculum of 8 subjects for climate change content and the opinion of 30 curriculum developers on a Likert scale. SPSS chi-square test was used for data analysis. The results showed that 44% of students and 69% of teachers completely understand the term climate change and the reason for this difference is their different levels of education, experience and exposure to the world environment. Students have limited climate change knowledge; however, teachers appear to be more aware of the causes and effects, adaptation strategies and improvement techniques, but gaps still exist in their knowledge. In addition, science students and teachers are better aware of the concept. However, climate change awareness has not been given proper space in the curriculum. Curriculum developers also endorsed the same.