Turkish High School Students’ Awareness about Carbon Footprint and the Effects of Teaching on Fostering Awareness

Abstract

Carbon emissions, which are one of the most significant human sourced causes of global climate change, continue to rise rapidly despite all efforts. Carbon footprint (CF) education is significant in terms of turning this situation of the opposite. The aim of this study is to determine the awareness of high school students about CF which is included in High School Biology Curriculum and the effects of teaching on this awareness. For this reason, a study based on mixed design was conducted with a total of 140 high school students. As the results, despite the fact that the students' awareness related to the domains of households and transportation are higher than the awareness related to the problems in the domain of lifestyle, it has been determined that the students do not have a holistic approach about CF and global climate change. When the situation is evaluated, in spite of taking place in High School Biology Curriculum, it has been seen that teaching of CF concept and the objective in the program has not been achieved. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate the teaching program and its teacher dimension again. Also, the test used in this study can be utilized as a teaching material in CF instruction besides CF calculations or as an alternative material.