Browsing by Author "Hirviniemi, Liisi"

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.