The Educational Effect of History Lessons on the Subject of Climate Change Regarding Environmental Awareness

기후 변화 주제를 다룬 역사 수업의 환경교육 효과

Currently, climate change is regarded as one of the most important environmental issues in the 21st century. However, climate change education is not seriously carried out in schools. This study is concerned about enhancing students' recognition about climate change and actions responding to climate change through an history discipline. More specifically, this study tried to identify the effect of history lessons on environmental education, especially focused on climate change, by performing an experiment. The experiment was designed based on Solomon four-group design and carried out in one high school in Gwangmyeong city. Findings of the experiment are as follows. First, students who had taken the reorganized history lesson based on climate change - that is, students with experimental treatments - gained higher understanding of climate change than before and students of control groups. Second, students with experimental treatments gained higher understanding about relationship between history and climate change. Third, students with experimental treatments showed higher possibility of taking responding actions to climate change. In conclusion, history lessons reorganized with environmental issues, for instance climate change, have big potential for environmental education since they contribute to enhancing environmental recognition and prompting responding actions through exploration the effects of existing historical facts. Interdisciplinary approach like that taken in this study will provide students with more comprehensive and extended prism for the environment.