English Abstract
Abstract:
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of the current era. Its negative impacts have been experienced worldwide, particularly in small island developing states like the Kingdom of Bahrain, which severely threaten sustainable development.
Education plays a vital role in enhancing knowledge regarding climate change, how to address it, its
causes and impacts, in addition to its contribution to shaping attitudes and changing the learners’ behaviour in a way that assists in mitigating it or adapting to it.
This study aims to explore to what extent climate change topics are included in science and mathematics
curricula for pre-university levels in the Kingdom of Bahrain and to assess the level of awareness of it among first-year university students.
To accomplish this, a content analysis was performed on a total of 63 mathematics and science books for the three pre-university levels in the government schools in Bahrain, searching for climate change topics within it, considering creative and critical thinking skills.
A survey was formulated to gather the opinions of local climate change experts to improve the current curriculum by proposing the most critical climate change topics for the pre-university levels.
The Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) questionnaire was implemented for first-year university.
Then, an enrichment unit on climate change issues was presented to the 38 students and measured its impact on raising awareness on this matter. In the end, the Box-Jenkins ARIMA modelling technique was applied to forecast the effect of knowledge on future Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Smart–PLS was used to model the relations between Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, and Responses (DPSIR) with the KAP.
The study results showed limited climate change knowledge (mean score of 42%) and a disconnect between positive attitudes (62% Agreeing) and consistent pro-environmental behaviours (14%
Always), which indicated poor awareness among first-year university students of climate
change issues.
The content analysis revealed that climate change topics are included in 37% of mathematics and science textbooks, of which 9% only discussed responses, while all the textbooks that were printed after the year 2015 did not mention the latest environmental topics such as sustainable development goals.
Climate experts recommended adding the impact of climate change (Goal 13) and consumption patterns (Goal 12) to the curricula of the pre-university level in Bahrain.
The enrichment unit enhanced the students' knowledge from ‘’poor’’ to ‘’acceptable’’ level, changed the students’ attitude from ‘’agree’’ to ‘’strongly agree’ regarding positive environmental attitudes, and promoted
environmentally friendly practices from ‘’sometimes’’ to ‘’always’’.
The modelling results indicated that individuals’ knowledge of climate change could shape their attitudes,
influencing their practice, which would develop a better environmentally friendly and positive practice and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The study recommended developing and updating the curricula for all levels to align with Bahrain’s priorities and commitments towards local and global issues, thus addressing climate change issues
