Finnish students' knowledge of climate change mitigation and its connection to hope

Abstract

Climate change is a global concern, and the need to address it is urgent. Therefore, climate change education has been developed in recent years. Meaning making, coping strategies, and solution-oriented climate education tasks enable and maintain hope for positive results with regard to climate change. However, there is still uncertainty as to how students' knowledge of climate change mitigation measures affects their attitudes. In the present study, elementary and secondary students in Finland (n = 950) responded to an online questionnaire. A principal component analysis, a hierarchical regression analysis, a correlation coefficients, a t-test, and a Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance were used for the analysis to understand what kind of hope students had towards climate change and how their knowledge and optimism regarding climate change affected their hope. The data revealed that the students had a relatively high constructive hope rather than denial hope when it comes to climate change. Additionally, this hope was not built on a minimisation of climate change. The results indicated that the significant predictors for climate change mitigation were gender, climate change knowledge, and constructive hope. A typology of student positions with regard to climate change is introduced as conclusions.