INTRODUCTION:

Global warming is defined as an increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere, especially a sustained increase significant enough to cause changes in the global climate. The term global warming is synonymous with an enhanced greenhouse effect, implying an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere, leading to entrapment of more and more solar radiations, and thus increasing the overall temperature of the earth.

According to the The Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, if the process of global warming continues to increase, resulting climatic disasters would cause a decrease in India’s GDP to decline by about 9%, with a decrease by 40% of the production of the major crops. A temperature increase of 2° C in India is projected to displace seven million people, with a submersion of the major cities of India like Mumbai and Chennai¹. UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its report assessing impacts of climate change on human health, settlements and natural resources released on Monday, carried a dire warning. "The worst is yet to come," it said, if no measures are taken to curb the ill-effects of global warming. India, like other developing economies, may lose up to 1.7% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) if the annual mean temperature rises by 1 degree Celsius compared to pre-industrialization level, hitting the poor the most.²Human beings have increased the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere by about thirty percent, which is an extremely significant increase, even on inter-glacial timescales. It is believed that human beings are responsible for this because the increase is almost perfectly correlated with increases in fossil fuel combustion, and also due other evidence, such as changes in the ratios of different carbon isotopes in atmospheric CO₂that are consistent with "anthropogenic" (human caused) emissions. Deforestation is responsible for 25% of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, by the burning and cutting of about 34 million acres of trees each year.³

Currently malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition flows related to climate change cause about 150,000world death annually, according to WHO. With warming temperature, the breeding cycle of malaria-mosquitoes is shortening, which means more mosquitoes and malaria each year. The same effect will likely be seen with other vector borne disease such as dengue fever, which has infected 60,000people in one outbreak in brazil’ sriode feneiro this year alone. Rising temperature and varying rainfall patterns could affect staple-crop production and food security.⁴

Rising sea levels make coastal areas more susceptible to storm surges and flooding that result from severe weather. Just last year almost 7million people were displaced by flooding in Dhaka, Bangladesh and in 2004, floods there killed more than 700.1990s, more than 16,000 deaths occurred world wide as a result of weather related disasters. WHO now says that 150,000 deaths are attributable to the effect of climate change. Many people are under the mistaken impression that only if the polar ice caps melt will sea level rise. In fact average sea level around the world has already risen 4-8 inches in the past 100 years due to global warming and is expected to rise another 4-35 inches by 2100.the primary reason for this rise is that water expands as it warms. The second reason is that glaciers all over the world are melting and land based ice melts, the water runs to the sea and increases its level. Thousands of small islands are threatened by the projected sea level rise for the 21^st century.⁵Jeronen E., Kaikkonen M. (2002) and Malkus, A., Musser L. (1997) examine relationships between children’s environmental concern. These researchers believe that children have some awareness on global warming, but need to build more knowledge on prevention.⁶ Malkus, A., and Musser, L. (1997) found that younger children were more concerned with the environment then older children. The children who are concerned with the environment are looking to help save their planet and make their parents aware as well.⁷A quasi-experimental design involving a treatment with 55 samples and a group representing typical teaching method with 60 samples was used to measure the effectiveness on increasing children's knowledge about global warming; changing their attitudes to be more favorable towards the environment and 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.⁸

N. Sasikumar conducted a study regarding awareness of global warming the graduate teacher trainees. To identify the level of awareness regarding global warming and to enhance the same among future secondary school teachers. The study was conducted in graduate trainees of college of education, Karaikudi Town, Sivagangi District, Tamilnadu state. The authors used purposive sampling and samples are collected only from graduate teacher trainees. The total respondent of the graduate teacher training colleges is 300.out of 300 the authors selected only 290 samples from the respondent of graduate teacher training and result of the study shows that graduate teacher training of government college of education have awareness on global warming which is more than the private graduate teacher trainees. It is suggest that the above study may be undertaken with all the government colleges of education graduate teacher trainees. The same present study can be conducted to high school students and diploma teacher trainees. The authors conclude that students belong to arts group graduate trainees have low awareness on global warming than the students of graduate trainees.⁹

Sharmila, Conducted a study regarding college students knowledge about global warming, physical science and engineering. The study was intended to find out the knowledge of global warming among the college students in Madurai district, Tamilnadu, India. Random sampling technique was used to compose a sample of 1168 college students. The result revealed that male and female students, rural and urban area students, arts and science group students exhibited significant difference but nuclear and joint family students had no significant difference in respect of their knowledge of global warming.¹⁰There are only few studies had been conducted among school children on global warming. Every year global warming is causing adverse effect and creating a dangerous future for our children. It was found that there is a deficit of global climate change education in our schools. Studies show that children have some awareness but do very little to help the earth. Hence the researcher developed interest to educate the school children and increase their knowledge on global warming and it’s impact on health.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

One group pre and post test design was chosen for the present study. The study was conducted among 70 adolescent school children studying 11^th and 12^th standard in Government Higher Secondary School of Villupuram District in Tamilnadu. The study participants were selected by convenience sampling technique. Prior to the data collection the ethical clearance was obtained from the institution ethics committee. permission was sought from the headmaster of the school and got consent from the study participants for willingness to participate in the study. A structured questionnaire was developed and , validated by subject experts and pretested before the data collection. The questionnaire consists of Section-A, Demographic data and Section-B, knowledge questionnaire on global warming . There were 20 objective type questions about the causes, consequences and prevention of global warming with a total score of 20. Each right answer was given a score of 1 and wrong answer 0. The total score is subdivided into 1-5- inadequate knowledge,6-15 adequate knowledge and 16-20 adequate knowledge . Pre test knowledge assessment of the students was done before implementing the computer assisted structured teaching program. Immediately after the pretest one hour computer assisted teaching program on global warming was given to the students. After one week the post test knowledge assessment was done. The pre and post test knowledge was compared and analyzed.

RESULTS:

The findings of the present study shows(Table.1) that in the pretest majority of the students had inadequate knowledge(57%) , whereas in the post test after the computer assisted teaching majority(83%) of the students gained adequate knowledge on global warming.

Table.1 Frequency and percentage distribution of pre and post test knowledge N=70

Assessment	Mean	Standard deviation	Mean difference	Paired t- test
PRE TEST	12.14	2.46	7.63	11.86^*
POST TEST	19.77	2.61	7.63	11.86^*

Table.2 Comparison of overall Mean, Standard deviation and the ‘t’ value N=70

Level of knowledge	PRE TEST Frequency and percentage	POST TEST Frequency and percentage
Adequate	7(10%)	58 (83%)
Moderately Adequate	23(33%)	12(17%)
Inadequate	40(57%)	-

df₍₆₉₎ *Significant p<0.05

Table. 2 depicts the mean post test knowledge score was greater than the mean pretest knowledge score. The calculated ‘t’ value (11.86) was greater than the table value (1.66) at p< 0.05 level, which indicates that the computer assisted teaching was effective among the students. Hence the hypothesis was accepted as there is a significant difference between the pre and post test knowledge scores.

DISCUSSION:

The pretest knowledge scores of the present study denotes that 57% students had inadequate knowledge on global warming. It is supported by a research study surveyed the college students in a sample of lower- and upper-division courses in three content areas: knowledge and attitudes about climate change, intentions to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions, and student satisfaction with the amount of current teaching at the university about climate change and suggestions for improvement. The findings reveal that majority of respondents believe that climate change is real and largely human-induced and express concern about climate change. The students in the sample hold misconceptions about the basic causes and consequences of climate change.¹¹

In the present study the students’ knowledge on global warming was improved after computer assisted teaching. Similarly a study with quasi-experimental design involving a treatment with 55 samples and a group representing typical teaching method with 60 samples was used to measure the effectiveness on increasing children's knowledge about global warming; changing their attitudes to be more favorable towards the environment and 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.⁸

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

The author are grateful to acknowledge the School headmaster, teachers and the students for their support and cooperation.

CONCLUSION:

Most importantly, today’s children are tomorrow’s consumers and policy makers. Their current attitudes and behaviours can have profound impact on how the world’s future stands against global warming. So let us educate the school children and impart the knowledge on global warming to protect the world from disaster.

REFERENCES:

1. greencleanguide.com/.../global-warming-and-its-impacts-on-climate, Nov 18, 2013.

2. timesofindia.indiatimes.com › Environment Apr 1, 2014.

3. Adverse climate changes available from: URL:http://www.medindia.net.

4. The human side of global warming available from http://www.american progress.org.

5. Carnegie Mellon University, Teacher’s Guide to High-Quality Education Material on Climate Change and Global Warming.

6. Jeronen, E., and Kaikkonen, M. (2002, October). Thoughts of Children and Adults about the Environment and Environmental Education. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 11(4), 341-353. Retrieved November 20, 2008, from AcaSearch Premier database.

7. Malkus, A., and Musser, L. (1997, April 1). Environmental Concern in School-Age Children. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED407099) Retrieved November 20, 2008, from ERIC database.

8. Mageswary Karpudewan, Wolff-Michael Roth and Mohd Nor Syahrir Bin Abdullah, Enhancing Primary School Students' Knowledge about Global Warming and Environmental Attitude Using Climate Change Activities, International Journal of Science Education ,Volume 37, Issue 1, 2015,pp: 31-54.

9. N. Sasikumar, Awareness of global warming among the graduate teacher trainees, research center for research in education. Journal of education and practice, JSSN, Vol 2, No 9, 2011.

10. Sharmila V. College student’s knowledge about global warming, physical science and engineering, International journal of current research.

11. Sandra Wachholz, Nancy Artz , Douglas Chene , Warming to the idea: university students' knowledge and attitudes about climate change, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol 15,Issue.2, 2014, pp.128 - 141.

Received on 21.09.2015 Modified on 15.10.2015

Asian J. Nur. Edu. and Research. 2016; 6(2): 217-220.

DOI: 10.5958/2349-2996.2016.00040.9