Abstract
A 44-item questionnaire was created to examine pre-service teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of the impact of mitigative climate change actions and how willing they are to undertake these actions. Responses (N = 224) were collected from pre-service teachers at the University of Eastern Finland. The findings show that pre-service teachers have a very low level of knowledge of the impact of different mitigative climate change actions. Furthermore, the students tend to overestimate the carbon footprint of low-impact actions and underestimate the carbon footprint of high-impact actions and they are unable to make a clear distinction between low- and high-impact actions, though the impact of the high-impact actions may be many times greater than those of low-impact actions. In general, pre-service teachers were willing to take low-impact actions, somewhat willing to take mid-impact actions, but reluctant to take the highest-impact actions. Knowledge of the impact of actions did not correlate with willingness to act, possibly due to low levels of knowledge. Some correlation between confidence in knowledge and willingness to act was found. This article discusses the importance of considering confidence in knowledge in future research examining the relationship between knowledge and action. The implications of the findings on teacher education and environmental education are also discussed.
Highlights
Scientific consensus indicates that the climate is changing and that current changes are mostly driven by humans through increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (IPCC, 2014a)
In order to stay under 1.5 °C degrees of global warming, a goal set by the EU, the carbon footprint of individuals needs to be reduced significantly
Extensive research has been done on pro-environmental behavior and people’s willingness to undertake certain actions, studies that consider the impact of different actions are scarce
Summary
Scientific consensus indicates that the climate is changing and that current changes are mostly driven by humans through increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (IPCC, 2014a). It should be reduced to 2100 kg of CO2eq by 2050 even to stay below a maximum temperature increase of 2 °C (Girod et al, 2014) In western countries, this means a three to ten-fold decrease, depending on the country Ivanova et al 2015) To reach such emission cuts, lifestyle changes should be focused especially on those actions that have a high impact on climate change. Extensive research has been done on pro-environmental behavior and people’s willingness to undertake certain actions, studies that consider the impact of different actions are scarce For this reason, this study first examines pre-service teachers’ understanding of the impact of different types of mitigative actions, and examines how willing they are to take these actions
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