The Effects of Parent Energy Education Workshop

Author(s):

Hsiu-chih Su(presenting / submitting)Hsin-Sheng Tsay Wei-Kuo Wang Hua-Nan Chang Wen-Yu Wang Tzu-Yi Pai

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Poster

Session Information

30 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:

2014-09-03

12:30-14:00

Room:

Poster Area E (in front of B001-B003)

Chair:

Jonas Lysgaard

Contribution

Global warming is a serious environmental issue nowadays. It does not only bring extreme weather changes, but also cause economic loss. For sustainable development, many countries, including Taiwan, have implemented many policies intended to mitigate global warming, and to reduce carbon emission, including increased use of renewable energy and increased energy efficiency. However, the overall effects were not obvious.

The 2007–2008 Gallup Polls surveyed 127 countries, and found over a third of the world's population was unaware of global warming. By 2010, the Gallup surveyed 111 countries, and found that there was a substantial decrease in the number of Americans and Europeans who viewed global warming as a serious threat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming).

In Taiwan, energy conservation and carbon reduction has been listed as important guiding principles of government policies, and the year of 2010 was even named as “the year of energy conservation and carbon reduction”. The government implemented many policies and intended to develop Taiwan into a low-carbon country. However, more efforts are needed. In 2009, Taiwan was included in ranking of Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) by Germanwatch regarding CO2 emission trend, level, and climate policy. Among 57 countries, Taiwan ranked 29, the following year, Taiwan ranked 44, and in 2012, Taiwan ranked 50, indicating that overall performance was very poor (Burck, Bals, & Bohnenberger, 2012).

International Energy Agency (IEA, 2011) reported that in 2009 Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) produced 10.89 tons of CO₂ /capita, compared to 11.40 tons of CO₂ /capita in 2008, however, the number was still higher than 9.83 tons of CO₂ /capita of OECD total countries. These data suggested that energy education is especially important in Taiwan.

Surveys also indicated that many people in Taiwan were not aware of the importance of mitigation of global warming, energy saving and carbon emission reduction. Yeh (2009) found that most parents and school-age children did not understand the relations between “global warming” and “energy saving and carbon emission reduction”. About 87% did not think they could do anything to improve climate changes resulted from global warming, however, 90 % were willing to buy energy-efficient products within their budget.

So far, most energy education research has focused on students and schools, less research is done with parents. This was the third year study of a 3-year longitudinal study of the effects of energy education, the major research question was to study the effects of parent energy education workshops. There were three major objectives.

To design parent energy education workshops.
To conduct parent energy education workshops.
To evaluate the effects of parent energy education workshops.

Method

This study was aimed to investigate the effects of parent energy education workshops on parents knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards energy saving and carbon reduction in Taiwan. Parents of three preschools in three counties in central Taiwan were invited to attend a parent energy education workshop. The workshop included a parent energy education lecture, children’s activities, and parent-child activities. The parent energy education lecture was about the causes of global warming, consequences of global warming, energy knowledge, and how to mitigate global warming. While parents attended the lecture, their children would listen to stories of energy education (Something From Nothing by Phoebe Gilman; Abigale the Happy Whale, by Peter Farrelly). After listening to the stories, children participated in activities in groups, one group of preschoolers learned to make banana bread, another group learned to make hand-made soup. The themes of children’s activities were about reducing wastes and environmental protection. Unattractive and overripe bananas could be made to delicious bread. Hand-made soaps had no artificial color and chemicals were more eco-friendly. The second part of the workshop, parent and children engaged in decoupage DIY activities together, learning to recycle or renew used and old furniture or items. Parents received pretests of knowledge and behaviors, and posttests of attitudes towards energy saving and carbon reduction The validity and reliability of criterion variables were provided by Su et al. (2012). In addition, satisfaction and opinions about the workshops were collected. This study analyzed parents’ satisfaction and opinions about the workshops. Totally, at least 184 parents attended the workshops, however, some parents came late or left early, thus there were some missing data. Seventy-one percent questionnaires were completed by mothers, and 67.4% were between 31-40 years old; 75.2% had two-year college education and above.

Expected Outcomes

The results indicated that 95.3 % of parents were satisfied (32.9%) or very satisfied (62.4%) with parent energy education workshops. When asked whether parents would be interested in parent energy education lecture in the future, 84.7% expressed interested (44.7%) or very interested (40%), only 1.2 % expressed not interested, and 14.1% expressed average. About 94.1% parents felt that this workshop increased their knowledge about energy saving and carbon reduction, including 47.1% very helpful, and 47.1% helpful. About 94.1% parents felt that this workshop enhanced their attitudes towards energy saving and carbon reduction, including 42.4% very helpful, and 51.8% helpful. About 91.8% parents felt that this workshop would improve their behaviors towards energy saving and carbon reduction, including 43.5% very helpful, and 48.2% helpful. Overall results suggested that parent energy education workshops had positive effects, and parents had positive feedbacks. Parents’ opinions towards this workshop included: I hope that there are more DIY activities in the future, we can convey the concepts of recycling to next generation. Parents can model the behavior, from now on, Let’s love earth together. Let’s work together, fighting, save energy, reduce carbon, and save the earth. Let’s save energy and reduce carbon together, the decoupage DIY activity is fun. The staff is very friendly, excellent. The lecturer is very humorous, the content is good, thank you.

References

Burck, J. & Bals, C., & Parker, L. (2011). Climate Change Performance Index, CCPI 2011 http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi Su, Hsiu-Chih, Tsay, Hsin-Sheng, Wang, Wei-Kuo, Chang, Hua-Nan, Wang, Wen-Yu, Pai, Tzu-Yi (2012). Survey of Parents’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors towards Energy Saving and Carbon Emission Reduction in Taiwan Elementary Schools. The Journal of Chaoyang University of Technology, 17, 107-154. This research was supported by grants from the National Science Council in Taiwan NSC 102-3113-S-324-001

Author Information

Hsiu-chih Su (presenting / submitting)

Chaoyang University of Technology

Early Childhood Development and Education

Taiwan

Hsin-Sheng Tsay