High-school teachers lack teaching materials on environmental education and climate change issues, Greenpeace Taiwan said on Friday.
Greenpeace Taiwan distributed questionnaires to teachers across the nation for a survey titled “Taiwan Climate Change and Environmental Education.”
Among the 1,035 valid responses, more than 80 percent had a “low degree of satisfaction” with the environmental education teaching materials and textbooks that schools provide, the group said.
Huang Shang-ching (黃尚卿), project manager for environmental education at Greenpeace Taiwan, said that the survey was sent to high-school teachers of social sciences, biology, Earth science, geography and those who teach environmental education of their own initiative.
The rate of climate education in the north of Taiwan is higher than elsewhere, with 72.5 percent of respondents having such course material in Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, Huang said.
Among respondents with at least 20 years of experience, 76.6 percent had environmental curricula, compared with 57.5 percent among those with fewer than 10 years of experience, the survey showed.
“It is likely that teachers with more working experience have a better handle on the overall curriculum and the content of courses, so they have more time to teach extra lessons and run programs outside the regular curriculum,” Huang said.
“When these teachers are aware of the effects of climate change, they become quite supportive of teaching about it,” he said. “However, we also found that some are resistant to teaching about climate change and cross-disciplinary programs that require cooperation with other teachers.”
Most high-school teachers have concluded that most students lack interest in climate change issues and its immediate effects, the survey showed.
In follow-up interview with respondents, Greenpeace Taiwan said that it found that lack of interest was a result of pressure from families for students to achieve high grades, while other factors included the low cost of electricity, and an impression that climate change has not directly affected people.
Many teachers mentioned that when the weather is hot, the only solution students have is to tweak the air conditioner, Huang said.
“Teachers said that students know about climate change, but their personal lives are not greatly affected by it and they have not considered ways to mitigate it,” he said. “Taiwan has only taken the first steps regarding knowledge about climate change. People are aware of the effects, but understanding has not yet reached a deep and broad level.”
If environmental education does not bring about improved awareness and understanding, then when students finish school and lose contact with teachers, it becomes a fairy story for most, he said.
The low level of satisfaction with climate teaching materials is because the contents are brief and simplistic, while only four hours of teaching are required in a school year under the Environmental Education Act (環境教育法), making the subject a mere formality, Huang said.
Teachers are forced to go online or obtain materials from civil organizations, which further hinders climate change and environmental education, he said.
Greenpeace Taiwan said that it would propose a climate change and environmental education program for high schools to establish a platform for active learning and exchanges of ideas on the issue.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
RSS