Examination of university students awareness on global climate change

Climate change is one of the most important global problems of today. In the world and in our country, many studies have been carried out on this issue in different fields and new developments have been realized recently. In our country, a course called Environmental Education and Climate Change has recently been planned in secondary schools. The aim of this study is to reveal the awareness of prospective social studies and science teachers studying at the Faculty of Education about climate change. Before starting the research, the studies on climate change in the field of education were examined. The method preferred in this research is descriptive research method, which is an approach of quantitative research method. The sample of the study consisted of a total of 271 pre-service teachers, 111 (40%) pre-service science teachers and 160 (60%) pre-service social studies teachers, continuing their education at Amasya University Faculty of Education in the 2023/2024 academic year. In order to reveal the climate change awareness of the study group, the Awareness Scale of University Students towards Global Climate Change developed by Deniz, İnel, and Sezer was used. Demographic data of the prospective teachers were collected with the Personal Information Form. The data obtained from pre-service teachers were analyzed with SPSS 20 program. Before analyzing the data, the mean, mode, median, skewness and kurtosis values of the mean scores of the pre-service teachers on the KID scale and its sub-dimensions, namely Impacts on Natural and Human Environment, Awareness of Global Organizations and Agreements, Emerging Causes and Energy Consumption Relationship were examined, the histogram graph was examined and it was seen that the data were normally distributed. In accordance with the sub-problems of the study, the variables of gender, department, having taken a course and the place where they spend most of their lives, which consist of two unrelated groups, were analyzed by t-test for independent samples; and the variables of grade level, resources used by pre-service teachers and their anxiety status, which consist of more than two unrelated groups, were analyzed by One-Way Analysis of Variance. It was determined that the climate change awareness of pre-service teachers did not differ statistically significantly according to their gender, department and the place where they spend most of their lives. As a result of the analysis according to having taken a course before, grade level, sources used to get information about climate change and anxiety status, it was concluded that pre-service teachers' awareness of climate change showed statistically significant differences. It was suggested that the environmental education course, which is an elective course in the programs of pre-service teachers, should be added to the program more appropriately and students should be encouraged to choose this course, that a compulsory climate change course should be added to the course programs of pre-service teachers depending on the positive effect of the courses given in the faculty of education on the awareness of pre-service teachers, and that a new and interdisciplinary program should be created to include both science and social studies teachers working together since climate change has natural and human dimensions.