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Makale Özeti:
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Schools, as institutions for general education, are believed to have a responsibility to equip
their students with the knowledge and commitment to take personally meaningful decisions
and action to address the challenges posed by both lifestyle and societal conditions.
Achieving this goal requires, among other things, adequate integration of the ‘challenges’
into the school curricula. This paper reports results of a study that assessed whether (and the
extent to which) loss of biological diversity and climate change have been incorporated into
Biology curriculum guides for Ethiopian secondary and preparatory schools. To this end,
content analysis has been used as a principal technique. The findings revealed that the
revised curriculum guides have integrated a number of issues that could enhance understanding
about the significance of biodiversity and consequences of its loss. Issues related to
biodiversity have been addressed, in one form or the other, in all grades except grade eleven.
When it comes to climate change, the revised curriculum guides offer little opportunity
to integrate the issue. The paper thus argues that, where such issues are not ‘manifestly’ integrated
into the curriculum guides, one cannot expect concrete action planned and
executed against loss of biodiversity and climate change. The paper calls for redressing
some of the observed limitations through interdisciplinary collaboration and/or revision of
existing content.
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