Grade - 8 Students’ Knowledge on the Impact of Human Activities on an Ecosystem Using Aftermath Wheel

Abstract

This study determined the Grade 8 students’ knowledge on the impact of human activities on an ecosystem using teacher-made educational hands-on activity in the form of Aftermath Wheel. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was conducted using an achievement test. Population sampling method was employed to choose the subjects of the study. There were 53 Grade 8 students form two classes of Burgos National High School in Cabarroguis, Quirino, Philippines. For the treatment, 23 students belongs to the control group (K to 12 module based lesson) and 30 students served as experimental group (Utilization of Aftermath Wheel). Data revealed that the mean scores of the control group in the pre-test was 11.91/30 (39.7%), and in the post-test was 12.74/30 (42.47%) while the mean scores of the experimental group in the pre-test was 12.8/30 (42.7%) and in the post-test was 14.07/30 (46.9%). Apparently, there is no significant difference in the pre-test and post-test scores in the control group while the post-test scores of the experimental group revealed significantly greater than their pre-test scores with a p-value of 0.013. It was found also that the post-test scores of the experimental group significantly greater than the post-test scores of the control group in the subtopic on ways of minimizing human impact, with a p-value of 0.028. And in the overall, data analysis revealed that there is no significant difference in the over-all post-test scores between the control group. Relatively, this study has demonstrated that the aftermath wheel can help in enhancing the knowledge of the grade 8 students on the impact of human activities on an ecosystem. Hence, the researcher recommended to use of the Aftermath Wheel as an alternative method to enhance the knowledge of the students on the impact of human activities in the ecosystem.