Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics
This article presents an evaluation of a new upper secondary Earth and Environmental Science (EES) course in Western Australia. Twenty-seven EES teachers were interviewed and 243 students were surveyed about the degree of difficulty, relevance and interest of EES topics in the course. The impact of...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Australian Association for Environmental Education Inc.
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/4833 |
| _version_ | 1848744627475054592 |
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| author | Dawson, Vaille Carson, Katherine |
| author_facet | Dawson, Vaille Carson, Katherine |
| author_sort | Dawson, Vaille |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This article presents an evaluation of a new upper secondary Earth and Environmental Science (EES) course in Western Australia. Twenty-seven EES teachers were interviewed and 243 students were surveyed about the degree of difficulty, relevance and interest of EES topics in the course. The impact of the course on students’ views about EES topics was also explored. It was found that more than two thirds of the students chose to study EES because of personal interest. However, students perceived that some Earth science topics were difficult, boring or irrelevant. A lack of content knowledge from lower secondary science contributed to these perceptions. Nevertheless, teachers and students perceived that their understanding and attitudes towards environmental science topics such as climate change was improved. With the advent of a new Australian senior secondary science curriculum that includes EES, the implications of the findings for curriculum development and teacher professional development are discussed. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:04:28Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-4833 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:04:28Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Australian Association for Environmental Education Inc. |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-48332017-09-13T14:46:23Z Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics Dawson, Vaille Carson, Katherine This article presents an evaluation of a new upper secondary Earth and Environmental Science (EES) course in Western Australia. Twenty-seven EES teachers were interviewed and 243 students were surveyed about the degree of difficulty, relevance and interest of EES topics in the course. The impact of the course on students’ views about EES topics was also explored. It was found that more than two thirds of the students chose to study EES because of personal interest. However, students perceived that some Earth science topics were difficult, boring or irrelevant. A lack of content knowledge from lower secondary science contributed to these perceptions. Nevertheless, teachers and students perceived that their understanding and attitudes towards environmental science topics such as climate change was improved. With the advent of a new Australian senior secondary science curriculum that includes EES, the implications of the findings for curriculum development and teacher professional development are discussed. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/4833 10.1017/aee.2014.6 Australian Association for Environmental Education Inc. fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Dawson, Vaille Carson, Katherine Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics |
| title | Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics |
| title_full | Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics |
| title_fullStr | Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics |
| title_short | Science Teachers' and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Perceptions of Earth and Environmental Science Topics |
| title_sort | science teachers' and senior secondary schools students' perceptions of earth and environmental science topics |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/4833 |