Junior High School Students' Creative Thinking Skills in The Context of Global Warming: A Preliminary Study on The Implementation of a STEM at Home Approach on Science Learning

Abstract

This paper reports a preliminary study before implementing the STEM at Home strategy in junior high school science learning. Students' creative thinking skills are the central issue in this STEM at-home research. For this reason, this pre-implementation study aims to determine the extent of the creative thinking skills of junior high school students in science, especially in the context of Global Warming. We also want to know the differences in creative thinking skills by gender as it is known that Global Warming is a vital world issue at this time and in the future. Meanwhile, creative thinking skills are essential 21st-century skills for our young generation to be able to compete in the era of globalization. A total of 80 Junior High School Students who have studied the topic of Global Warming were selected as respondents in this study. Respondents were given a test of creative thinking skills in the context of Global Warming with three themes: Forest and Land Fires, Greenhouse Effect, and Renewable Energy. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the respondents' level of creative thinking skills, and an independent sample t-test was used to determine the effect of gender on their creative thinking skills. The results of data analysis show that the creative thinking skills of the respondents are in a low category, especially in terms of originality and elaboration thinking skills. Meanwhile, it was identified descriptively that there was a tendency for female respondents to have better creative thinking skills than male respondents. The t-test results show that the difference in the mean score of creative thinking skills is not significant for all aspects, except for the originality aspect. These findings mean that male and female students tend to have the same creative thinking skills, especially in global warming issues, and these skills need to be improved through more innovative science learning.