Reply To: Curricula review on Climate Change

[Anonymous]

#5316

(a) What is known about climate change?
• It is a cross-cutting issue and it is affecting our environment. It is rapidly changing and human are the major contributors to the rapid changes happening. The environment is quickly losing its biodiversity.
• Human activities are a major contributing factor to environmental degradation
adverse effects of environmental degradation such as floods, drought, irratic rainfall and global warming are hitting the world including southern Africa.
• There is a need to adapt to climate change, and change the way we do things where possible. For that to be possible, an ecosystem approach can be used to adapt to climate change.
(b) What is not yet known?
• The extent to which climate change will and has already affected different sectors and livelihoods in Southern Africa. The extent to which food security has been threatened through the impossibility of plantation of food due to extreme rains and drought.
• The extent to which livelihood of Southern Africans has been affected, could be affected by climate change and what needs to be done to mitigate.
• How best can communities meet their needs while ensuring sustainable livelihood.
• Whose responsibility is it to ensure environmental sustainability?
(c) What is currently offered and how it can be improved in my institution?
What is currently included at Ngwane Teachers College – Faculty of Science Education subject curricula on climate change is encountered in Chemistry and Biology as subject topics. Others encounter it in Geography and Agricultrure. Unfortunately, the teaching approach is knowledge based from a global perspective and there is very little room to bring things closer to home. Curriculum would be improved if more case studies on major calamities that have happened in Southern Africa due climate change were included in the Curriculum. This would help student teachers appreciate the seriousness of the topic and be agents of change to wherever they would be posted to teach.
It would also be useful to infuse the topic in other subjects to underscore its importance, even if they are non-science subjects.