PROGRAM

BACHELOR IN MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES WITH HONOURS

SEM 1 / JANUARY 2020

OUMH 1603

LEARNING SKILL FOR 21ST CENTURY

MATRICULATION NO : 850514135721001
IDENTITY CARD NO. : 850514135721
TELEPHONE NO. : 0135713064
E-MAIL : rajasarawak85@uom.edu.my
LEARNING CENTRE : SARAWAK LEARNING CENTER

(Total 2876 words excluding references)

INTRODUCTION

On 4 December 2018, the world was surprised by the spirit of a 15 year old girl, from
Sweden, named Greta Thunberg, whom had been given an opportunity to deliver her speech
in the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) or COP24 in Katowice, Poland about the climate change
(Rigitano, 2018). Her determination in spreading the awareness regarding the climate
change once again tackled the attention of many, during her speech at the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland on 21 January 2020 (Kettley, 2020). Greta, is a prove that age
was not a barrier in spreading awareness, especially when it comes to environmental and
global issues. She is also a prove that global citizenship education can be implemented
successfully as long as they, the children, were given the right platforms and resources in
discussing certain issues, especially the environmental issues. Climate change might not be
a familiar term for some people, but if we talked about an increasing in ocean temperature
and extreme weather, a declination in air quality and an increasing in the emissions of
greenhouse gasses (Luber & Prudent,2020) , we might got a very good response from the
people as the impact already hit us globally for years. 

“No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and
environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world. Because that world,
in case you haven’t noticed, is currently on fire” said Greta Thunberg in her speech
(Kettley,2020). As such, this paper aims to discuss the possible way to spread awareness
among the global citizen on this climate change issue through global citizenship education
pedagogy. In the following section, we discuss few major sources of climate change and
few ways of reducing the effects of climate change as individuals.
Part A : Environmental issue 

In this paper, the environmental issue that will be highlighted is the climate change, or
to be more specific, the cause of climate change and how, we, as an individual, can help in
reducing the effects. The issue on climate change has always been becoming my major
concern when it comes to environmental issues, other than the single-used plastic problem.
These two critical issues have been widely discussed around the world nowadays due to its
great impact towards humankind. However, I would like to emphasize more on this climate
change because, as said by Luber and Prudent (2009), global warming impacts already
affecting the physicals and biological systems of the whole continents and oceans and more
to comes in the future.   

Lineman et. al. (2015) define climate change as an effect of modification in global or
regional climate patterns from the mid to late 20 century onwards. This changes commonly
th

assigned by the increasing level of atmospheric carbon dioxide due to global consumption
of fossil fuels. Hence, Lineman defined global warming as an increasing in average global
temperature in a long term trend. Therefore, as we talked about the climate change, the
other term, global warming must be highlighted too because this two terms have been used
interactively in defining the changes that happened to our earth. 

Since 1988, the climate scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), led by James Hansen, come out with a warnings on the harmful
consequences of climate change and they affirmed that the increasing trend in Earth’s
temperature was due to the growth of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (Butler,
2018). That was about 20 years ago, and ever since that time, the awareness regarding
climate change arise rapidly and being discussed broadly. However, the discussion seems to
have no end as our earth temperature continue to rise and climate change was described as
the biggest global health threat of the 21st century according to Costello et.al.(2009).  

 Thus, this article are probably to spread awareness among global citizen on the impact
of climate change against our life, especially our health. Shope (1991) said that, other than
dengue, yellow fever and cholera, we should expect for the possibility of emergence of new
infectious disease related to global warming effect to our forest, where many of fragile
species of insect vectors and vertebrate hosts of parasitic, bacterial and viral infections lost
their natural habitats due to global warming. This hypothesis made by Shope in 1991 was
proved by a research by Nicholas et.al.(2009) which resulted as, “the potential effects of
climate change and energy vulnerability on health, with the main health effects being
grouped under the following themes: waterborne disease; vector borne disease; food borne
disease; incidence of temperature related deaths; skin cancer and cataracts; increase in
starvation and malnutrition; increased incidence of respiratory disorders/death due to
pollution/particulate matter; injury and death due to flooding/storms; psychological effects."
Due to these various kind of disease, we must take action in order to make sure that our
civilization will not come to extinction.
 Part B 

i. Video on GCED : https://youtu.be/KuKzq9EDt-0 

This video convey the message in a very creative and accurate ways. The animation
used can attract attention of people from different ages, the kids and as well as the adults. In
this video, the purpose of Global Citizenship Education can help people to learn to live
together in peace. It nurtures respect for all, a sense of belonging to common humanity
based on human rights. All three GCED dimensionals concept such as cognitive, socio-
emotional and behavioral aspect were discussed briefly but with complete information.

From this video, people should know the role of GCED in their life. A global citizen
should be able to think critically about certain issues, understand the interconnection
between the local and global and come out with solutions that can be beneficial to the world
globally. It also able to build motivation among the citizens to engage themselves with
global issue such as climate change.

Furthermore, the video also told us various techniques to educate people about global
citizenship. The education is not restricted by a wall of a classroom only, but a global
citizen can equip themselves with wide range of knowledge through community association,
authorities, the media and family. As long as people can build an interconnection about
certain issues extrinsically, then the global citizenship education was considered happened.
ii. Video on the chosen issue (climate change) :  https://youtu.be/dcBXmj1nMTQ 

The first aspect that I would like to enhanced based on the video is regarding the
systematic arrangement of the information given. Firstly, the video provide the viewer with
a facts, based on the research done by the scientist, followed by the causes of the climate
change from various fields. Then, they show what are the actual problem that the world
face, which is the increasing in earth temperature that is rapidly happened for the passed
year. Next, the impacts of the increasing temperature also have been showed throughout the
video of natural disaster such as flood, that happened in different country. Other than that,
they also provide the viewer with the action and solution that had been taken by the United
Nation and some countries to combat the impact of climate change.

The real example shown in the video from the whole world make it easier for me to
understand that the problem that we faced today was contributed by the whole community
around the world. The carbon emissions was not only caused by the developed countries
such as United States of America, China or Russia, but the whole world, as long as there
were human being, transportation, fossil fuel and coal burning and trading. This is very
important aspect to be highlighted for global citizenship education in order to generate the
feeling of interconnectedness and interdependency among people around the world.

Besides that, I found out that the video content are very easy to understand because the
information given was delivered clearly by the narrator and the important info was shown
and highlighted using a graphic, which is very helpful for better understanding. The
technique used by the narrator to grasp the attention of the viewer was able to implement
the values of responsibility and sense of humanity among the global citizen, so that they can
show their solidarity regarding this environmental issues by taking action from their
respective community and province.           
 Part C

i. GCED Conceptual Dimensions

UNESCO (2014) referring global citizenship as a sense of belonging among people

around the world to a wider community that connecting the local to global and the national
to international community. This concept help individuals to understand and relate oneself
to others and environments, through the universal values and broader diversity. People of
global citizenship should be aware that their daily actions and decisions has implications
towards the local, as well as the global. Thus, the concept of global citizenship education
(GCED) initiated by UNESCO is referring to the formation of global citizenship through
the constitutive functions of education. “It is directly related to the civic, social and political
socialization function of education, and ultimately to the contribution of education in
preparing children and young people to deal with the challenges of today’s increasingly
interconnected and interdependent world” (UNESCO,2014). GCED also emphasis on
addressing learning contents and outcomes, pedagogy and the learning environment in
formal, non-formal and informal learning in order to enable learners to transform
themselves and society.

As we know, GCED goals is to develop three main cores which are behavioural, socio-
emotional and cognitive. The first component of GCED encouraged people to act local,
national or globally in creating a more peaceful world while the second component require
people to have a sense of belonging to a common humanity. Finally, the cognitive
component require global citizen gaining more knowledge and practicing critical thinking
regarding global issues and the inter dependency between problems and countries. 

“Before communities can effectively address environmental challenges, they must be

cohesive and inclusive. A community where everyone has a sense of belonging is more
likely to take pride in making their community work not just for themselves but for future
generations” (Leslie,2009).

Mochizuki and Brian (2009) suggested the rulers of every country to really understand
the systematic impacts of climate change and take immediate actions through national
education. In accordance with the three concepts of GCED, new knowledge and skills, as
well as behavioural changes are the ultimate weapons for the future generations to win a
 battle against our vulnerabilities towards the climate change associated impacts.  Next,
Mochizuki and Bryan also suggested the global citizen to deal with the climate change
realities by equipping themselves with “multi-pronged educational approach, involving non-
formal, large-scale public awareness campaigns targeting people of all ages, to more formal
educational responses engaging learners at all levels of the system”. Hence, the concept of
mitigation and adaptation are the best strategy to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions and
other impacts from the climate change. 

ii. Resolving environmental issue

Sakhlani and Khurana (2019) suggested few strategies for solving global warming.
First is to get rid of the fossil fuels in the routine of the society and replacing it with
renewable energy and carbon-free power sources such as solar, wind and hydro. Next is by
putting an end to continuous deforestation. it is very important because the photosynthesis
process run by crops are the most effective way in removing atmospheric carbon
dioxide.     

Although Busch (2019) stated that climate change problems needed a movement
beyond individual-level outcomes, but the actions must be taken by individual and the
communities in order to overcome the problems. So, in accordance to the solutions given by
Sakhlani and Kurana, here are some actions that can be applied by global citizens in
combating the climate change impacts. As individual, the major possible way to reduce the
effect of climate change is by decreasing the amount of carbon emissions per head. The
amount of carbon emissions can be reduced by using public transport, carpool or walking
from home to workplace because transportation is one of the leading sources of greenhouse
gas emissions. Besides that, we also can choose to use hybrid or electric engine car in order
to avoid fossil fuel transport. It is very important to decrease the amount of carbon
emissions because it leads to increase in greenhouse gas, which is the main causes of global
warming. If every single person on earth are willing to take this small action, there will be
hope of decrements in carbon emissions.

Furthermore, If we can consume less stuff, the effect of climate change also can be
reduced. Why is it said so? It is because, when we buy less stuff or buy things in bulks, we
 can cut back the burning of fossil fuels to extract, produce and ship products around the
world. Buying in bulks also can reduce the amount of packaging, such as plastic wrapping.
So, other than reducing the effect of climate change, we can also reduce the consumption of
single used plastic in daily life.

Lastly, in order to show our concerns towards the climate change, we must grow our
own foods. For example, we can grow our own vegetables or fishes at our own backyard,
just enough for our own consumption. By that, we can reduce our demand against the
imported goods. When there are no imported goods, that means, no transportation and no
carbon gasses emitted.  

iii. GCED versus climate change issue

Chang (2014) agreed that the only medium an individuals engaged with climate change
issue is through education, or public education specifically. Stevenson (2007) said that, to
make climate change as one of the mainstreams subject teach in formal education systems
are the most impelling medium for addressing the climate issues.  

Meanwhile Cordero, Centeno and Todd (2020) mentioned that whilst education is the
essential factor in responding to climate change as emphasized by the United Nations
Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), but it is rarely mentioned as
part of major contributor for climate solution strategies. 

This statement agreed by other researcher when Reid (2019) mentioned in his article,
title ‘Climate change education and research: possibilities and potentials versus problems
and perils’, that most of professional educators accreditation in most countries are not
stating climate change education as part of the accreditation requirement.

Berger,Gerum & Moon (2015) said that the right pedagogues acquired by the educator
on climate change education somehow could led to empowerment of climate change
education in learning system throughout the world. Most of the teachers that participating in
their research had given a positive feedback about climate change education pedagogy, such
as, “being able to simplify complex concepts for students, having ideas of where to start in
teaching about climate change, having thought about how to respond to controversy in the
classroom, having moved to a more activity-based approach, having understood that there
are many human-relationship aspects to climate change, and knowing how to integrate
climate change into different subjects”. Hence, if the teachers were given a professional
training on climate change education, the implementation of GCED in combating climate
change issue can be a successful undertaking.

CONCLUSION

Climate change and GCED have become a well-conversed topic among scientists and
peoples in the world today. Some people might do everything possible to stop contributing to
the warming, but the average person does little to improve the issue and, in many cases,
refuses to admit that there is a problem at all. This paper give some information about climate
change; its causes, effects and how we can overcome this problem in the present era, hoping
to spread some awareness to some people on how critical the problems we are facing right
now. In this century the environmental problems are increasing day by day and this paper
provides some easy solutions for it.

SELF-REFLECTION

While doing a research for this paper, a quote form Thunberg keep ringing in my mind;
“Our house is on fire”. Our earth is in a very critical conditions. Many solutions have been
suggested and confirmed to be efficient by the research institutes around the world, but
climate change impacts keep showing itself because there were no massive action taken. By
now, I am aware that a small action taken by a single person or a society can do a huge
impact towards our mother nature if we really understand the problems that we are facing
right now. Hence, the roles of GCED in enhancing the climate change education throughout
the world becomes promising solutions to the issue. By that, I am deeply hoping that there
will be a major outbreak event which can help us in combating the climate change impact.
May God bless all humankind and forgive us for a destruction that we had made to the
earth.
 Finally, I would like to thank the staff and all staff of Open University Malaysia
(OUM) for their help and guidance, until I succeeded in taking this course. Not to mention,
to all of our teachers, e-tutors and friends who have all studied together at OUM, I thank
you for your support, encouragement and guidance in the classroom. It is my hope that
more and more individuals who want to pursue their education will choose OUM as their
foundation in pursuit of their future 21st century challenges. Together we made it to the
pinnacle of success at Open University Malaysia (OUM).
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