Browsing by Subject "ilmastonmuutos"

Bicycle model on climate change education is a model recommended by the Finnish Board of Education. It combines current climate education and offers a way to educate children about climate change. The goal of the model is to be involved in solving the climate crisis, one of today's biggest issues. This study examines the thinking contained in the bicycle model from the point of view of ideology criticism. Its goal is to investigate how the bicycle model promotes or avoids facing the Real of the climate crisis, the contradictions that fundamentally challenges the current order of humanity. The research method is Žižek's critique of ideology, which consists of interpreting the symptoms of ideology and traversing the fantasy. The study shows how the bicycle model approaches the Real of the climate crisis to some extent, but ends up avoiding it through an ideological operation, according to which the climate crisis can be solved by environmental responsibility. Based on the study, the bicycle model offers means of consumption to change the consumption-oriented worldview and contains the fantasy of "Nature" as a coherent entity that interacts with the individual. The Study presents an alternative attitude towards the climate crisis based on Žižek's philosophy.

Objectives. This master’s thesis was inspired on one hand by the current climate advocacy of children, and on the other by the persuasive possibilities of written texts (Anderson, 2008, 271; Wollman-Bonilla, 2004, 520). The aim of this piece of research was to investigate climate discourses and genre conventions in persuasive letters or “climate letters” written by primary school pupils. In addition, the aim was to specify and analyse which linguistic means were utilized to produce these climate discourses. This study increases knowledge of the meanings children attribute to climate change. Methods. The data for this study was collected from five primary school classes in four different schools. The students were in grades 3 to 6. The original data consisted of 54 letters. However, five letters which made up one of the classes participating in the study had to be disqualified. The conclusive data consisted of 49 climate letters from four different classes. The letters were analysed qualitatively utilizing discourse analysis and terminology within genre studies. Linguistic analysis, in this case the study of evaluations and modality, was used to support the discourse analysis. Findings and conclusions. The pupils’ climate letters utilized similar genre conventions which are natural to persuasive letters. These genre conventions are described using the term family resemblance. The letters have a similar schematic structure consisting of a greeting, a sequence containing opinions, arguments and suggestions, and a closing. By use of discourse analysis, six climate discourses were uncovered: a discourse about people-driven climate change, a denialist discourse, a conservation discourse, an animal rights discourse, a discourse of a sense of threat and a discourse of climate action. The discourses were produced using evaluations and modality. The evaluations varied. They were used to strengthen the affective quality of the letters and they proved to be an integral means of producing meanings about climate change. Out of the types of modality, dynamic modality was the most commonly used. In addition, illustrations were used to produce meanings about climate change. This study endeavours to offer more understanding about the meanings children develop about climate change so that the efforts to mitigate global warming would be more inclusive to the voices of the generation that will likely suffer most from the climate crisis.

Climate change is a global crisis that affects the whole world. Education plays a significant role in climate change mitigation and adapting to the changes of climate change. It is necessary that people question their habits and change their behavior more climate friendly. Class teachers’ task is to provide students with appropriate information about climate change and different means to react to it. The aim of this thesis was to research student teachers’ conceptions of climate change, climate change education and its significance in elementary school education. In addition, the goal was to investigate how, according to the experiences of class teacher students, climate education has been dealt with in university studies. According to previous international and Finnish studies, teachers do not get enough knowledge or skills to implement climate education in elementary school. The skills and knowledge acquired in teacher training have a significant impact on what kind of climate education class teachers implement or whether it is implemented at all. For this reason, I also examined how to student classroom teachers would develop teacher training based on their experiences in university. The material of this thesis was collected and analyzed using a qualitative method. The material of the research consisted of interviews with five class teacher students from the University of Helsinki and five from the University of Oulu. The interviewees were ei-ther third-, fourth- or fifth year student teachers who had completed teacher’s pedagogical studies. The interviews were conducted as semi-structured thematic interview and the analyzed using a phenomenographic research approach. The results are based on the description categories made in the analysis of the phenomenographic research sample. The results of this thesis state that class teacher students understand the social importance of climate education and the seriousness of climate change. The aim of cli-mate education in elementary school was seen as understanding climate change as a phenomenon and climate change mitigation in everyday life, changing one’s own behavior and world of values more climate friendly. The interviewees also defined what skills, knowledge, and character traits a good climate educator should own. The student teachers felt that they were unsure about implementing climate education because according to them, climate education in university studies has been little, bad or has not been done at all. The interviewees would develop university studies in a way its content and teaching methods would prepare class teachers better and more thoroughly for the subjects taught in elementary school.

The climate effects of food, and especially meat, have been in the news for a long time, and are prone to raise heated debate among Finnish consumers. The purpose of this paper is to examine how young, meat-eating men have experienced the climate debate to affect their eating habits, and how they rationalize their meat eating. This research concerns the field of food studies in home economics sciences, by examining the effect of food on the climate, and the effect of these climate effects on the consumer. The material used in this study is from a survey conducted by Helsingin Sanomat in the spring of 2020, concerning the food choices of consumers. The survey collected 23 000 re-sponses. The focus of this study was the 404 men between the ages of 25 and 34, who did not follow any form of plant-based diet, and their answers to an open-ended question about the effects of the climate debate on their eating. The answers were examined qualitatively us-ing theory-led content analysis. As a result of the research, six content categories were composed, describing the respondents’ experiences: climate skepticism and indifference; Finnish, local and organic food; reduced consumption of animal products; price, quality, and preparation; health and other ecological choices. From the results we can conclude that many respondents had a highly skeptical attitude towards claims of the climate effects of food, especially meat, or felt generally frustrated with the food-related climate debate. Similarly, the respondents did generally not believe Finnish meat to be bad for the climate. On the other hand, many respondents had decreased their meat consumption, mostly due to external factors, like family member’s plant-based diet, or the vegetarian food served at their workplace cafeteria. The results also indicate that seeing meat eating as a normal part of one’s everyday diet combined with a lack of experience with high-quality vegetarian food can be a major hindrance in transitioning towards a more plant-based diet.