Geophysical Research Abstracts
Vol. 13, EGU2011-PREVIEW, 2011
EGU General Assembly 2011
© Author(s) 2011
Climate literacy for upper primary teachers
Tomas Miler (1,2) and Jindriska Svobodova (1)
(1) Department of Physics, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Poˇríˇcí 7, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic, (2) Department
of Exp. Physics, Faculty of Science, Palacký University, 17. listopadu 50, 771 46 Olomouc, Czech Republic
The topic of climate change appears frequently in the media but the scientific information is often misinterpreted by
journalists and misunderstood by the public. Wide-spread denial of anthropogenic climate change competes with
the data reported by climate scientists. Peer-reviewed articles are written in scientific language which is not easy
to understand. We designed a three years course for upper primary school in order to improve the climate literacy
of the population. Our study seeks to develop a climate education course which could be easily accepted by the
current educational system. Traditional subjects have limited number of lessons per week and compulsory curricula
cannot be reduced. Climate education can be performed during these lessons but it requires agreement and very
good collaboration of several teachers. We designed our climate curriculum as systematic three year course. The
curriculum was tested at pilot upper primary school as a voluntary subject with time allotment one hour a week.
For formal education we prefer to have a special subject dedicated to climate education. We suggest that effective
climate education should be selective. It is better for the society to have one climate literate politician than one
climate literate carpenter. Of course every individual has the human right of climate literacy. But in the limited
time we have, it is not a realistic goal to achieve climate literacy for all. Our approach seeks to select prestigious
primary and secondary schools which are likely to recruit future decision makers, managers of institutions and
companies, journalists and teachers. These schools ought to be provided with programs of systematic climate
education. If the society had climate literate leaders, journalists and teachers, the public would receive relevant
information from them. All teachers should become climate literate at least at a basic level. First of all, we need
programs to educate future teachers at faculties of education. Implementation of climate education at faculties of
education requires close collaboration with the departments of Geography, Physics, Biology and others. These
departments could provide courses for all students of pedagogy. In order to educate the future generations in bases
of climate sciences we need climate literate teachers. Does their knowledge and perception of climate change
differ from the public? Several surveys have been published showing critically low climate literacy of the public
in Europe and USA. We conducted a survey investigating upper primary teachers’ knowledge of climate change in
the Czech republic. At the presentation we also share the results of our survey.