Dynamics of Teaching in the Era of Climate Change Education

Introduction

Ordinarily, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is all about encouraging behavior that promotes a sustainable future in the era of climate change. According to UNESCO (2009), ESD is based on five types of learning: learning to know; learning to do; learning to live together; learning to be and learning to transform oneself and society in the context of climate change. When dealing with ideologies of practice and teacher actions that influence effective teaching of numeracy, the work of Muir (2008) linked the dynamics of teaching in the era of climate change education to the observable performance of teaching acts, involving interacting effectively with students through questions and probes, answers and reactions, and praise and criticism that would be an ideal for this era of climate change crisis.

In schools and teaching, it is more of behavior change. In this regard, Mbah, Shingruf and Molthan-Hill (2022) opined that in the case of climate change, the relationship between variables influencing pro-climatic behavior and the role of knowledge seem to be even more complex and multi-faceted. In the same vain, analyses by Lehnert, Fiedor, Frajer, Hercik and Jurek (2020) confirmed that there is a weak or no correlation between climate change awareness/knowledge and the willingness to act in favor of climate protection. Interestingly, other studies by Stevenson, Nils-Peterson and Bondell (2018) found the link between climate knowledge and behavior to be significant. This therefore, calls for a pro-active teaching and equipping teachers and educators with dynamics of teaching in the era of climate change education.

Since in our schools and educational institutions normally have both gender that should be made more aware of climate change education, some educative information by Kolenatý, Kroufek and Cinˇcera (2022) revealed that the analyses of survey data showed that girls exhibited significantly higher levels of climate change concern and willingness to act than boys (in both pre-test and post-test), but there was no significant difference between girls and boys with regard to climate change knowledge and self-efficacy. This gap on climate change knowledge and self-efficacy is explored in this chapter.

The chapter proposes recommendations for effective teaching using modern technology that would lead to increased student achievement and mastery and comprehension of course material provided. This sentiment is supported by Barrick (2011) who opined that when the subject matter to be learned possesses meaning, organization and structure which is clear, then learning proceeds more rapidly and what is eventually learnt is retained longer by students. On the contrary, teachers would strive to do their best to teach, however, the key problem is that the higher authorities of the schools have to decide what the schools need to achieve. This could be possible by arranging plans for schoolwork which will eventually attain the desired ends. More importantly, teachers should be involved in making some of these decisions. In dynamics of teaching in the era of climate change, more participants should be reached with climate change informative education. This is because early ‘information-deficit’ models assumed that if people were well-informed about the causes and consequences of environmental problems, which are likely to be caused by climate change, then they would adopt pro-environmental behavior to remedy the situation effectively (Kolenatý et al. 2022).

Due to the fact that change is a process, dynamics of teaching in the era of climate change education cannot be realized in isolation. Involving other ardent education stakeholders is key. Studies by Farrell, Devlin and James (2017) in Australia emphasized that in order to achieve climate change education, members of the community have to be effectively included by initiating and implementing constructive change in their communities. This should include their professions and workplaces. These members of the community need to have excellent interpersonal and decision-making skills, including an awareness of personal strengths and limitations, mentor future generations of learners in the community; engage in meaningful public discourse and creative participation with a profound awareness of their needs (Davies & Devlin, 2007).