Recent Trend of Environmental Education on Acid Rain and Soil, and the Survey of Current Status of Upper Secondary School Students

Abstract

Survey research of environmental education on acid rain and its effect on soil was conducted for its practical application to chemistry education in upper secondary schools. In particular, studies were focused on the following three: I. Literature research of acid rain and soil as environmental education materials in Japan to clarify the trend of current studies; II. Survey of description on acid rain and soil in science textbooks for elementary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schools; III. Questionnaire survey on the degree of knowledge and consciousness possessed by upper secondary school students. The results of the above three surveys revealed the following points: (1) Various studies on using acid rain and soil as educational materials have been conducted and there are quite a number of practical activities being conducted in actual school education. However, in most practical activities, only simple measurements of pH or other quantities are conducted. (2) Many textbooks print an article about acid rain and contain many photographs in particular of damages caused by acid rain. Scientific explanation of acid rain according to the development stage is given in elementary and lower secondary school textbooks, but upper secondary school textbooks only have content similar to that of lower secondary school textbooks. (3) Upper secondary school students have rich knowledge about the cause and damage of acid rain, but poor scientific knowledge about pH or dissolved ions. Also, while they care about acid rain but have little motivation to take action to solve the problem.