The Jamaican national standards curriculum: a content analysis of its readiness to support climate change education

Abstract

The Ministry of Education, Youth, and Information (MoEYI) in Jamaica engaged in curriculum reform, producing the National Standards Curriculum (NSC) for Grades 4–9. This paper reports on a content analysis of the Grades 4–6 curriculum to determine the representation of Climate Change (CC) content, pedagogies, and activities for supporting Climate Change Education (CCE). The analysis revealed that the NSC includes many CC concepts throughout all three Grades, mostly in Grade 6 Science and Social Studies. In addition, various instructional strategies relevant to CCE are included, for instance, drama, field trips, class discussions, and the use of information and communications technology. However, there are some gaps in the content related to the impact of CC and mitigation measures. The presence of CC content and pedagogical tools in the NSC necessitates an emphasis of these areas in teacher preparation and development programmes to ensure readiness to teach CC.

Keywords:

• Climate change
• climate change education
• content analysis
• curriculum
• Jamaica

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).