A capacity building short course on climate change education that was attended by 21 teachers. The course was conducted from the 15-19 August 2016 in Fryberg, North West. The training was coordinated by Lebona Nkahle and Caleb Mandikonza from Rhodes University’s Environmental Learning Research Centre.
The course sought to equip senior phase Natural Science teachers, teaching Grades 7-9, with skills to understand and handle environmental content and more specifically climate change related content in the CAPS curriculum. It was also aimed at assisting teachers to see where climate change is located and how it is expressed within the curriculum. The course was structured to enhance teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge on climate change, their pedagogical teaching practices and supported them on better ways of assessing the content they taught in order to facilitate meaningful learning.
Following the training, the teachers expressed satisfaction with the course content saying that they had benefited new knowledge which they struggled with in their teaching. Some of the teaching methods such as the excursion on the school grounds were useful and applicable in their classrooms as they always thought of excursions away from school. Teachers were now better positioned to structure assessment tasks that use different categories of knowledge skills more meaningfully. The training provided them with an opportunity to engage with each other and work more collaboratively on issues influencing the teaching and learning of Natural Science at Senior Phase in their district.
Article by Patience Shawarira