Assessment of Junior High School Students’ Awareness of Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Central Region, Ghana

Abstract

The study investigated the extent to which students of 13 Junior High Schools (JHS) in Twifu Praso district and Cape Coast metropolis in the Central Region of Ghana were aware of issues related to climate change and sustainable development. It adopted the descriptive survey design and employed the purposive sampling technique to select 400 final year research participants to respond to questionnaire items based on their school curriculum. The analysis was however based on valid responses of 367 respondents. There was a statistical significant difference in the awareness of climate change between students in rural and urban schools. However, students’ awareness of climate change and sustainable development was generally low. Also, there was no difference found in the students’ awareness of sustainable development. The age of students had no significant influence on their performance in climate change and sustainable development test. Implications of these findings were discussed and it was suggested that climate change units be included in the teaching syllabuses/curricular and teachers should give more attention to the prescribed units of the text books.