Climate Change Awareness

People are generally unaware of climate change. The government has put into action activities that will help raise awareness of this such as the “Earth Day”. This may provide information to most but, people in rural areas seem to be less educated on climate change than those in city areas who are most affected by the government’s programs. Though most of the people are saying that they are truly aware of the environment, it is still not assured that they have high knowledge about the climate change. Climate change is a development issue. Because of its potential to affect so many aspects of human life, it is arguably the world’s most important development issue today. Climate change is even expected to damage agriculture and threaten the food supplies.

It can raise sea levels which displaces millions of people and even threatening the existence of some low-lying island states. The students should be able to recognize their limitations understanding about this issue. This study will show just how the people in a specific community, Philippine Science High School Southern Mindanao Campus, are aware of climate change. This study will help on identifying which gender and year level are more aware of the climate change. The study will be conducted through the use of surveys to gather information, and the resulting information and data will be the bases of telling their awareness score. Each student will have awareness scores which will tell how aware the student is about the climate change.

Methodology

The students were given a questionnaire or survey form and asked to answer each questions with their own current knowledge. Questions on the questionnaire or survey form were about climate change. This will test the student what they currently know about climate change. After answering the questions, including some personal information like year level and gender, their answers will be written in a tally sheet. There are about 70 items in the survey in which there is a correct answer. Every correct answer means 1 point to their awareness score. Awareness score will determine how much they know about climate change.

The data was classified to different gender and year level in a form of a table. The table has different columns which are their age, year level, sex, scholarship, location, income, health condition, time of reading or watching, subjects taken and their total awareness score. The student with the highest awareness score in each gender in a year level was taken and analyzed with a chart or graph.

Results and Discussion

The people who were asked to answer the survey were the students of Philippine Science High School Southern Mindanao Campus from Grade 7 to 4th year. Most students have about 50% to 70% correct answers on the survey questions. No students were to exceed 80% of correct answers and some even reached 0% to 30% of correct answers. The Grade 7 students mostly have less than 60% correct answers. Second year students have better scores with the most students reaching more than 60%. Third year students have more scores reaching 70%. And the fourth year students have quite the same scores with the third year students. Male students have higher awareness scores than the female students.

Highest awareness scores of male and female students in different batches

Based on the data gathered, the older the student, the higher the score is. It is quite reasonable since older students have more knowledge and experience because they took more science courses than the ones younger students. Also, male students are more aware of the climate change than the female students. Common mistakes of the students were made on the questions regarding the effects of the global warming and greenhouse effect to the environment.

Students who read books, newspapers, watch television and can access to the internet have more knowledge about the climate change. Having more sources of information can add up to the knowledge of each student. But these sources can also give misconceptions about the information of what they are reading. This may be a problem especially about their knowledge about the happenings in the environment.

There are many common conceptions about the climate change. An example of it is that burning fossil fuels uses the ozone layer up. Burning is a chemical process and also follows the law of conservation of matter. Combustion only combines the oxygen and carbon and does not disappear when it is burnt. Another misconception about the climate change is that global warming is caused by the hole in the ozone layer because it allows more radiation to enter the earth. That is incorrect since it is only caused by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is true that the hole in the ozone layer lets in more radiation like UV (Ultraviolet) Radiation but it is not a great factor of the global warming.

Being aware about the environment is a very important matter. Students or teenagers nowadays are more curious about anything else but environment. They are more curious to technology than climate change which is bad for everyone. Students must at least be able to know the reason of the climate change in our environment. Although based on the data gathered, some students do not even know those reasons.

Bibliography

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