Knowledge, Attitudes, and Awareness of New Jersey Public High School Students about Concepts of Climate Change, including Environmental Justice

Abstract

Increasing acknowledgement of climate change (CC) has encouraged various responses, such as education standard mandates. In 2021, New Jersey (NJ) became the first U.S. state to require K–12 CC education across subjects, effective fall 2022. This necessitated introductory science courses on CC to support high school (HS) curricula. Thus, NJ Safe Schools Program (NJSS) created a new course titled, “Introduction to HS Students to CC, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice (EJ).” Given that the COVID-19 pandemic continues (2020–2023 school years) and vaccination coverage varies, this course was developed and approved in an asynchronous online format. Its five modules cover environmental science, CC, natural disasters and extreme weather events, sustainability, including energy conservation and efficiency definitions, and EJ. A 20-question survey included at the end, modified/adapted from a larger nationwide U.S. Student Conservation Association (SCA) survey 2019–2020, examined the perspectives of HS students concerning CC. Selected volunteer NJ HS enlisted students (n = 82/128 finished) to pilot this course February–April 2022. Results such as average scores ≥90% suggested success regarding initial knowledge and awareness gained; for individual modules, two knowledge checks >80% and three knowledge checks >90%. The SCA survey results, overall and by region in NJ, highlighted how most students felt about CC and extreme weather events, plus issues such as EJ. This NJSS introductory course opened in July 2022 for NJ public county secondary school districts and comprehensive HS with approved career-technical education programs, and potentially elsewhere.