Knowledge of global climate change among Czech students and its influence on their beliefs in the efficacy of mitigation action

Abstract

Young people’s lives will be influenced by climate change and, in turn, climate change may itself be influenced by their future behaviour. Environmental education has thus to rise to the challenge of providing students with knowledge that will go beyond the simply factual and enable an understanding of the complexity of climate change. This paper follows on from our previous study of Czech students’ beliefs concerning the usefulness of mitigation measures and their willingness to act, and investigates students’ knowledge of climate change and the role that this plays in their beliefs. The results suggest that, when compared with their upper-primary and female counterparts, secondary-school and male students possess a higher degree of understanding of the complex issues of the causes and consequences of climate change and the underlying principles of the greenhouse effect. The positive influence of school education is manifested in the differences in the believed efficacy of mitigation actions which are less pronounced, and the beliefs higher in general, among secondary-school students. Students who exhibit a higher level of climate change knowledge, namely those with the ability to apply a more complex perception of climate change, more frequently believe in the efficacy of climate change mitigation.