Climate and Health Journal

Environmental Education with Art in Primary Education

Esra Mengioğlu Şimşek — 2023-12-08

Although environmental education differs from country to country as a method of application, its importance has increased considerably, especially in the last 10 years. Giving environmental education as a course on its own, including it in the curriculum of other courses; Although there are countries that receive support from various disciplines and teach with a wide variety of teaching methods, all countries agree that children should be prepared from a young age against the problems that may arise in the near future. In this study, teaching methods and examples from various countries are given first, and then the possible benefits of art and environmental education are mentioned.

Awareness Levels of Medical Faculty Students about Global Climate Change and Health Effects

Esra Yavuz — 2023-12-08

Objective: Climate change is defined as the loss of normal course of climates as a result of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere resulting from human activities and the deterioration of the structure of the atmosphere. Climate change affects human health in various ways. These effects include deterioration of food and water security, reduction in biodiversity, worsening of air quality, changes in the geographical distribution and seasonality of infectious diseases. Health professionals have important duties to prevent and control health problems that increase due to the direct or indirect effects of climate change.In this study, it was aimed to determine the level of knowledge and raise awareness of senior medical students about climate change and its health effects.

Method: The population of this study, which was designed in descriptive type, consists of the final year students of Atatürk University Faculty of Medicine. As a data tool, a questionnaire form, which was created by using the existing literature, was used. The survey questions consist of 4 parts. In the first part, there are 8 questions about sociodemographic characteristics, 3 questions about Hearing the Concept of Climate Change and Getting Education, 22 questions about General Views on Climate Change, Attitudes and Behaviors, and 4 questions about the health effects of climate change. Questionnaire forms were applied to 310 people (82.4%) under observation.

Results: The mean age of the students participating in the study was 24.6±1.48 years. 19.1% of the students stated that they do not know what greenhouse gases are. It was observed that 35.9% of the students did not know that the increase in greenhouse gases was one of the causes of climate change. While students' level of knowledge about the health effects of climate change is high; Among the health problems expected to increase with climate change, sexual dysfunction/infertility (56.8%), cataract/conjunctivitis (57.4%) and post-traumatic stress disorder (63.2%) were among the least known health problems by students. Having a father's education level of high school and above, female gender, graduating from science high school positively affected the students' knowledge scores about the health effects of climate change.

Conclusion: It has been observed that the students have lack of knowledge about the causes of climate change, its mechanism of formation, health effects and international conventions. There is a need to make new curriculum arrangements by focusing on environmental health courses, especially on the subjects where students lack education.

DETERMINING TRNC PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' METAPHORICAL PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE CONCEPT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

NAZIM KAŞOT — 2023-12-08

Climate change can be defined as the long-term change in the general average of the climate due to various reasons. This study, it was aimed to determine the metaphors (mental images) of primary school teachers regarding the concept of climate change and to contribute to the shaping of environmental education studies in this direction. People's perceptions are very important in shaping attitudes. Attitudes shape individuals' behaviors. However, determining teacher attitudes is very important for pre-service and post-service training studies on the subject. Determining the metaphorical perceptions of teachers at this level on climate change will make significant contributions to shaping environmental education activities on the subject. Within the scope of this study, an answer was sought to the question of what primary school teachers' mental images of "climate change" are. The research was prepared with a qualitative method. The study was based on the phenomenology pattern. Easily accessible case sampling was used in the study. The participants of this study were those who worked in public schools affiliated with the Primary Education Department of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) Ministry of National Education in the 2022-2023 academic years; It consists of 100 primary school teachers. Within the scope of the research, data was collected digitally through a worksheet created in Google Forms, one of the online data collection tools. After teachers fill in demographic information on the created digital worksheet; Climate Change………………. Similar/Like; They were asked to complete the sentence because……………………………………………. The data were analyzed with the help of content analysis. 100 different teachers evaluated within the scope of the research stated 38 different metaphors regarding the concept of climate change.