Integrating climate-smart rice agriculture into secondary-level curriculum: lessons from three high schools in the Philippines.

Jaime A Manalo,Argie M Pagdanganan,Katherine P Balmeo,Fredierick M Saludez,Jennifer D Villaflor,Jayson C Berto

doi:10.1186/s40064-016-3238-6

Abstract

Climate change (CC) is an urgent and highly relevant topic that must be integrated into the school curriculum. Literature on CC integration, however, is scarce, let alone literature on integrating climate-smart rice agriculture (CSRA). Bringing CSRA lessons into the classroom means the chance is higher that climate-smart technologies on rice will reach even the most far-flung areas of the Philippines, which stand to be among the most vulnerable as regards the negative impacts of CC. This paper shares experiences drawn from three high schools in the Philippines on integrating CSRA into their curriculum. The research centers on appropriate teaching tools/strategies, push and exogenous factors in CSRA integration, and the types of information that are likely to be shared by the students with their farmer-parents or other farmers in their communities. Surveys among participating students (n = 155) and three focus group discussions among key school officials were conducted. Different teaching methods and/or tools were found to be generally useful in various contexts. Photos and videos, however, emerged as the most effective tools across sites. The livelihood source of the students does have a bearing on the complexity of messages that they can convey. Students from rice-farming households can competently discuss even highly complex adaptation and mitigation information with their farmer-parents or other farmers. Thorough message-framing is necessary to maximize student involvement as well as to increase production of education–entertainment (edutainment) materials to be utilized in teaching. This study, in general, contributes to CC education by bringing in best-fit practices in teaching tools and strategies to mobilize students to act on urgent matters relating to the impacts of CC. It also advises on considering exogenous factors that might affect CC education by taking into account those that are equally capable of shaping students’ perception and knowledge.

Highlights

Climate change (CC) is an urgent and highly relevant topic that must be integrated into the school curriculum
The first major part, which talks about the teaching tools and/or strategies, push factors in teaching climate-smart rice agriculture (CSRA), and exogenous factors that may affect CSRA integration, deals with how this study advances CC education and adaptation literature
The second major part, which expounds on the topics that were taught to the students and those that were eventually shared by them, deals with how this study contributes to place-based education pedagogy

Summary

Introduction

Climate change (CC) is an urgent and highly relevant topic that must be integrated into the school curriculum. It has been observed that teachers have the tendency to align their teaching according to their own beliefs (Duschl 1990; Waters-Adams 2006), and in many instances, owing to the absence of a fully designed curriculum, they rely on doing their own research by searching for books and references that strengthen their views on a given subject (Wigfield and Eccles 2000; Disinger 2001; Choi et al 2010). Confusion in key CC terminologies has been noted (greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, for instance) (Ratinen et al 2013; Herman et al 2015).

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Results

Conclusion