STEM Teaching Tools on Climate Education: A Situational Audit on Climate Pedagogy
摘要
Universities being the pioneers in adult formal education has a vital role in disseminating climate change education. Study aimed to identify STEM teaching tools on climate literacy, climate change mitigation and adaptation measures and resilient building, to find out the pedagogies with climate justice and local anchor phenomena and to find out the pedagogies focusing on climate change learning on solutions along with finding out the pedagogies on building resilient communities. Primary data were collected from the academic staff of STEM faculties of 05 universities of Sri Lanka. Focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and questionnaire surveys were conducted with the academic staff members and curriculum development committees of the universities. Secondary data were sourced through online search on STEM teaching including the institutional review reports and program review reports of 16 STEM faculties of selected universities in Sri Lanka. Program handbooks were analyzed to identify the climate education-related courses offered by the recognized STEM faculties. The results revealed that climate pedagogies lead to improve climate literacy and to understand climate change as an issue affecting social justice, the economy, and the environment. Teacher centered both physical and online methods were less favored while student centered tools were highly accepted. Curriculum reviews and reforms, policy interventions, research and feedback surveys were central in introducing teaching pedagogies. Moreover, engineering, agriculture and science streams utilized integrated teaching approaches with problems solving, real world application and social conscience building to enhance the undergraduate adaptive capacity. Community anchor programs with problem-based learning were key to outreach work of the STEM faculties.