Mageswary Karpudewan

Ensuring sustainability of tomorrow through green chemistry integrated with sustainable development concepts (SDCs)

The purpose of this article is to describe a best practice: an approach to teaching chemistry that our quantitative research has shown to produce large differences between experimental and control groups in terms of achievement, pro-environmental attitudes, values, and motivation. Our interest in teaching chemistry by focusing on sustainable development arises from the environmental concerns that as the country of this study, Malaysia is facing in many different areas—including rampant logging and pollution. As educators, we are interested in educating future generations so that they can cope with the environmental challenges that not only this nation but also the world as a whole is increasingly facing. The “green chemistry” approach we describe here may be just the answer that other developing nations and emergent economies in closing the gap with industrialized nations. We provide a detailed description of how green chemistry has been implemented in a curriculum for pre-service science teachers and in the curriculum of secondary school chemistry.

Promoting pro-environmental attitudes and reported behaviors of Malaysian pre-service teachers using green chemistry experiments

Environmental degradation is a general problem but it is often more serious in developing nations where levels of awareness are lower than in industrialized countries. There is, therefore, a need particularly in developing countries to increase pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. In this paper, we report the results of a quasi-experimental study designed to change environmental attitudes and environmental behaviors among 263 science pre-service teachers. The treatment consisted in the form of a green chemistry curriculum. We found statistically reliable changes in environmental attitudes, as measured by the New Ecological Paradigm, and in eight self-reported environmental behaviors. The Bayesian t-test suggests that the evidence for the changes to have been the result of the green chemistry curriculum is decisive. We conclude that the green chemistry curriculum constitutes a suitable context: (a) for supporting pre-service teachers in their development of pro-environmental attitudes and (b) for changing the levels of self-reported pro-environmental actions.

Enhancing Primary School Students' Knowledge about Global Warming and Environmental Attitude Using Climate Change Activities.

Climate change generally and global warming specifically have become a common feature of the daily news. Due to widespread recognition of the adverse consequences of climate change on human lives, concerted societal effort has been taken to address it (e.g. by means of the science curriculum). This study was designed to test the effect that child-centred, 5E learning cycle-based climate change activities would have over more traditional teacher-centred activities on Malaysian Year 5 primary students (11 years). A quasi-experimental design involving a treatment (n = 55) and a group representing typical teaching method (n = 60) was used to measure the effectiveness of these activities on (a) increasing childrens knowledge about global warming; (b) changing their attitudes to be more favourable towards the environment and (c) identify the relationship between knowledge and attitude that exist in this study. Statistically significant differences in favour of the treatment group were detected for both knowledge and environmental attitudes. Non-significant relationship was identified between knowledge and attitude in this study. Interviews with randomly selected students from treatment and comparison groups further underscore these findings. Implications are discussed.

Remediating misconception on climate change among secondary school students in Malaysia

Existing studies report on secondary school students’ misconceptions related to climate change; they also report on the methods of teaching as reinforcing misconceptions. This quasi-experimental study was designed to test the null hypothesis that a curriculum based on constructivist principles does not lead to greater understanding and fewer misconceptions on acid rain, global warming, greenhouse effect, and ozone layer depletion than the traditional Malaysian curriculum. For this purpose, two classes from two different schools were randomly assigned to experimental (N = 35) and control condition (N = 38). Following the intervention, an ANCOVA with pre-test as the covariate showed statistically significant differences in understanding for all four topics; additional interviews with randomly selected students from experimental and control group further underscore the findings. Implications are discussed.

Greening a Chemistry Teaching Methods Course at the School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Green chemistry is the design, development and implementation of chemical products and processes to reduce or eliminate the use of sub-stances hazardous to human health and the environment. This article reports on the integration of green chemistry and sustainable development concepts (SDCs) into an existing teaching methods course for chemistry pre-service teachers. Incorporation of SDCs with green chemistry enhances the interdisciplinary nature of green chemistry. It is in line with the course purpose of introducing instructional strategies for teaching chemistry at the secondary level. Through the experiences of hands-on activities, writing lesson plans and integration of SDC content into lectures and discussion, pre-service teachers learned how to integrate these elements into their own courses. The design of this course is an example of how to integrate green chemistry incorporated with SDCs into a teacher education curriculum.

The role of green chemistry activities in fostering secondary school students' understanding of acid–base concepts and argumentation skills

In a world where environmental degradation is taking on alarming levels, understanding, and acting to minimize, the individual environmental impact is an important goal for many science educators. In this study, a green chemistry curriculum—combining chemistry experiments with everyday, environmentally friendly substances with a student-centered approach that includes student–student discussion—was tested for its potential to increase the understanding of acid–base concepts and argumentative skills. A quasi-experimental design was chosen intended to take into account teacher/school nested effects. The study involved three classes of 150 16 year old Form Four students (1 experimental, N = 50; 2 control, N = 100) from two Schools A and B serving students from the same sociocultural and economic backgrounds taught by two teachers (Teacher A in School A taught 1 experimental and 1 control; Teacher B in School B taught 1 control). An ANCOVA with a pre-test as a covariate showed a statistically significant treatment effect as measured by an acid–base concept understanding test. Additionally, qualitative analysis of an Argumentation Skill Test (AST) shows that the experimental students used higher levels of argumentation skills following treatment than their peers in the two control classes. Implications are discussed for integrating green chemistry into the secondary school chemistry curriculum to teach the content on acid–base and green chemistry as a tool to assist the construction of arguments.

Science writing heuristics embedded in green chemistry: a tool to nurture environmental literacy among pre-university students

Existing studies report on the importance of instilling environmental literacy among students from an early stage of schooling to enable them to adopt more pro-environmental behaviors in the near future. This quasi-experimental study was designed to compare the level of environmental literacy among two groups of students: the experimental group (N = 120) was taught using science writing heuristics embedded in a green chemistry curriculum (SWH-GC) and the comparison group (N = 90) was taught using a green chemistry curriculum. For the purpose of this study an environmental literacy model that consisted of pro-environmental attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and behavior was employed. ANCOVA with the pre-test as the covariate showed statistically significant differences in all four of the constructs that constitute environmental literacy, with the experimental group taught using SWH-GC exhibiting higher mean values. Interview findings with randomly selected students from both groups further reinforced the quantitative findings. Both quantitative and qualitative findings suggest that after the treatment, the experimental group students were keen to read about the environment, believed their actions would bring changes, were more knowledgeable regarding how to keep streams and lakes clean, and were more engaged in recycling activities. The implications are finally discussed.

Malaysian Primary Pre-Service Teachers’ Understanding and Awareness of Environmental Knowledge

The quality of the environment is threatened by problems such as global warming, water pollution, fast decline of forests, and desertification (World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987). Global issues on environmental destruction have created space for more environmental related research to be conducted to overcome the notion that people’s awareness over these issues is still at infancy. Due to this ignorance, human being continues to exploit the environment to an unprecedented scale to accommodate the expanding human needs and wants. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005), over the past 50 years human activities have changed vital ecosystem services more rapidly extensively than in any comparable period of history. It is perceived that rapid growing demand for fuel, food, and water is likely to exacerbate the current problems. As the global population grows and standards of living improve, there will be increasing stress on the world’s limited resources. Contemporary exponential increase in the price of crude oil further heightens this problem. Current degradation of natural environment has farreaching consequences both to mankind and nature. This situation would require both present and future generations to use the earth’s resources more efficiently and to produce less waste.

Green Chemistry-Based Dual-Situated Learning Model: An Approach that Reduces Students’ Misconceptions on Acids and Bases

In this study, green chemistry experiments have been used as learning events in the dual-situated learning model (DSLM), and the effectiveness of green chemistry-based DSLM in reducing misconceptions and improving understanding of acid–base concepts was measured. A total of 59 15-year-old Form 2 (equivalent to grade 8) students participated in the study that used a quasi-experimental design involving two groups, namely a comparison group (N = 29) and an experimental group (N = 30). A two-tier Acid and Base Diagnostic Test (ABDT) was used to measure misconceptions on acids and bases held by the students. One-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed on the post-test scores with pre-test scores as covariates. The post-test mean score of the experimental group (M exp = 53.23; SDexp = 9.42) appears to be higher than the comparison group’s post-test mean score (M com = 49.59; SDexp = 10.20) and the difference between the mean scores was significant (F (1, 56) = 24.69, p < 0.05). The findings of the study indicate that green chemistry-based DSLM resulted in reducing students’ misconceptions and improving understanding about acids and bases.

Experiential-Based Climate Change Education: Fostering Students' Knowledge and Motivation towards the Environment.

ABSTRACT Climate change is one of the most important environmental issues affecting our society today and we need to educate the citizens about the impact on human lives. An attempt was made to integrate experiential-based climate change education into the teaching and learning of secondary school Biology lessons on the topic of Endangered Ecosystem to improve students’ knowledge on climate change and increase motivation towards caring for the environment. Two classes from a school were randomly assigned to experimental (N = 30) and control groups (N = 32). Following the intervention, a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with pre-test data as covariate showed statistically significant differences in knowledge and motivation. Experiential-based climate change activities enabled students to construct the knowledge socially and also satisfied the three basic human needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness, which have subsequently promoted motivation. The findings described in this study are similar with other studies which reported that constructivist-based experiential learning has successfully developed awareness and encouraged learning and critical thinking about climate change.