Are Students Ready to Take on Environmental Challenges?
OECD
Abstract
Never before have the stakes been so high for the role of science education in shaping how people interact with the environment.Human activities such as the generation of greenhouse gases, the accumulation of waste, the fragmentation or destruction of ecosystems, and the depletion of resources are having a substantial impact on the global environment."These were the opening sentences of a report from one of the first PISA assessments, carried out back in 2006.PISA 2006 offered the first international assessment on what students know about the environment.The results showed that fewer than one in five 15-year-olds on average across OECD countries could thoroughly explain environmental processes and phenomena.This included using evidence to compare and differentiate among competing explanations.Close to two-thirds of 15-year-olds had at least a fair understanding of the science underpinning environmental issues.For example, they could interpret the relationship between two charts showing carbon dioxide emissions and the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere.But that figure ranged from 80% in Finland to below 20% in Qatar, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.Importantly, students with poorer knowledge and skills around environmental science often reported an almost naïve optimism that the environmental challenges would go away by themselves.That is not surprising.A better science education enables students to more realistically assess the magnitude of the challenges that lie ahead.It helps them apply ethical reasoning in relation to science and to consider consequences and evaluate externality in relation to experimental design and problem analysis.And a good science education helps students accept that science does not give direct answers for decision making or 'what one should do' but requires ethical and value-driven considerations.The world demands bold action to meet the global goal of net zero emissions by 2050.Education has a pivotal role in preparing us for a greener future, fostering sustainability, and keeping the world we know in ecological balance.Education can also build our resilience, helping us live in an increasingly imbalanced world.It can help us make better trade-offs between the present and the future, and between situational values -'I will do whatever the current situation allows me to do' -and sustainable values that better align individual and collective well-being.Beyond providing people with the scientific knowledge and skills that underpin a green economy, education can shape individual behaviour that influences political commitments, whether that is financing political parties or social activism.It can shape behaviour that impacts local communities -through volunteering or community services -and business practices, the latter through changes in consumption and lifestyle patterns, and personal investment and employment choices.However, results from PISA 2015, which was the last time science was the assessment's main domain, show little progress in 15-year-olds' environmental knowledge and understanding compared to PISA 2006.When there is need for a better understanding of the science of the environment and more active engagement on this issue but little progress in learning outcomes, we should ask ourselves what we can do differently.This is why PISA 2018 took this agenda up again.Human nature should be our ally in this -we are all born scientists.Children love to understand nature, to compare and contrast, to try things out and test new ideas, to figure out cause and effect.They take nothing for granted, always ready not just to learn but to unlearn and relearn when new paradigms emerge.And when they discover something new, they immediately take ownership of it and are eager to tell the whole world.But as children grow older, many turn away from this early love, considering science to be an abstract world of formulas and equations unrelated to their lives and dreams.A lot of that has to do with how we learn and teach science.What students learn in school science is often a mile wide but just an inch deep, quickly memorised and then forgotten, and unrelated to the environment.Amid all the facts and figures learned in school, it is easy to lose sight of what it means to think like a scientist -to build a hypothesis, design an experiment, and distinguish questions that are scientifically investigable from those that are not.Educating for the environment needs to not just equip young people with the decision-making skills to navigate through life but empower and support them to take action.As this report shows, pro-environmental attitudes and science proficiency tend to reinforce each other.Pro-environmental attitudes can foster curiosity and motivation for learning science; at the same time, scientific understanding of the environment lays the foundation for pro-environmental attitudes.