Climate change is a topic that I have had many previous misconceptions including mixing up the definitions of “climate” and “weather” as climate occurs over a long period of time and is constant whereas the weather on a particular day may change several times. Another misconception I had was the lack of public acceptance of climate change and in fact, many of the public question climate scientists and do not think it is a real issue. This is addressed in Wals A, and Corcoran, P (2012) as a UK study showed that only about 75% of the public accepted climate change (BBC 2010 and Spence et al 2010 cited by Dillon and Hobson). This result came as a shock to me as I believe climate change is a real, urgent and current issue with the most visual evidence being the melting of polar ice caps, which conveys the severity of the effect of greenhouse gases on our environment as a cause of climate change.

The most significant lesson I learned was how much of an impact was created by the choice of terminology surrounding climate change and how this affects the audience. Wals A, and Corcoran, P (2012) present a further UK study that showed the term “climate change” to create more of an alarmingly awareness of what is happening to our planet more so than using “global warming” which did not arise concern. (CRED 2009 cited in Dillion and Hobson, in press, p.6). Therefore, this made me re-evaluate how I first intended to teach this topic to children and to be consistent and clear with my terminology to inspire the desired acceptance and understanding of climate change.

After conducting the carbon footprint test which resulted in a result of 93%, it has become evident to me that awareness needs to be increased on the origin of the food I buy and consume in order to consume locally produced food, this will reduce my carbon footprint as the food will have been sustainably sourced and so the source can be repeatedly used for generations to come and not being wasted or not benefiting the environment. This action can simply be enacted by taking the time to check the label of food I buy and generally becoming more aware of where my local supermarkets source their food from. Other actions I can easily participate in is taking part in Earth Hour annually to join the communal effort of helping to become a greener planet.

References

Wals, A. and Corcoran, P (eds) (2012) Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change. [online] Netherlands: Wagenigen