Ecological and carbon footprints and their role in the perception of climate change among pre-service science teachers

Our research was focused on the perceptions of climate change among future science teachers. We also asked whether a knowledge of their own ecological and carbon footprints changed the students' attitudes towards climate change. To determine the study participants' impact on the environment and on greenhouse gas increases, a software that measures ecological and carbon footprints was used. The semantic differential method was used to determine how pre-service teachers understand the term "climate change" and the Climate Change Attitude Survey to measure students' attitudes towards environment with focus on climate change. The results indicate that pre-service teachers are not apathetic towards the climate change and calculating their ecological or carbon footprint allows them to determine some aspects of the influence of their own activities on the environment.