The effect of the environmental education and climate change course curriculum on the opinions, knowledge levels and awareness of 8th grade secondary school students about global climate change

The aim of this research is to determine the effect of the Environmental Education and Climate Change Course Curriculum on the views, knowledge levels and awareness of 8th grade secondary school students regarding global climate change. The research was conducted with a total of 832 8th grade secondary school students studying in the central district of Uşak province in the 2023-2024 academic year. While 452 of the participants in the research took the "Environmental Education and Climate Change" course as an elective in their schools, 380 participants did not take this course as an elective. In this research, where the screening model was used, the "Global Climate Change Survey" developed by Atik and Doğan (2019) and adapted for the level of middle school students within the scope of the purpose of the research was used as the data collection tool. In order to determine the students' opinions, knowledge levels and awareness regarding global climate change, the relevant achievements in the 4th and 5th units of the Environmental Education and Climate Change Course Curriculum were taken as criteria and limited. In the analysis of the obtained data, simple descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) and content analysis methods were used. As a result of the findings obtained from the research; Within the scope of the achievements in the 4th and 5th units of the Environmental Education and Climate Change Course Curriculum, it was determined that the participant groups who took the Environmental Education and Climate Change course and those who did not take this course considered themselves to have a good level of knowledge regarding global climate change, and that they had good and similar levels of knowledge regarding the definition of global climate change, its causes, its global or Turkey-specific effects, and combating global climate change. It was concluded that the awareness of the students regarding combating climate change in Turkey in the participant groups who took the Environmental Education and Climate Change course and those who did not take this course was also good and similar levels.