What should Science Education Prepare for ‘Carbon Neutrality’? for Elementary School Students

Sung Man Lim1   Kwang-Ho Man Lee1   Seong Un  Kim1,*   

1Korea National University of Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate what needs to be prepared at the elementary school site to realize the carbon neutral policy of the Korean government, which declared 2050 carbon neutral. For the survey, 1,963 elementary school students nationwide participated in the survey. The data of elementary school students were collected evenly by grade level and region. As a result of analyzing the collected data first, elementary school students had a very small number of 410 students (20.9%) who had heard of carbon neutrality. Second, elementary school students experienced carbon neutrality through various channels, and it was surveyed that they experienced the most through ‘school classes’. Third, as for terms related to carbon neutrality, it was found that the term for global warming was more easily understood than the term carbon neutrality. Fourth, as a result of investigating the understanding of carbon neutrality, we came to the conclusion that it is not ‘easy to understand’ for elementary school students. In addition, it was confirmed that the level of comprehension increased as the grade level increased. Fifth, as a result of examining the understanding of how to practice carbon neutrality, it was concluded that elementary school students understood better than ‘content’ and did not have any difficulties in understanding. In addition, these results confirmed that the level of understanding increases as the grade level increases. These results are expected to provide a lot of help in setting the direction of overall carbon-neutral education in the future.

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1. Example of card news