The Intergrated Study of K-12 Teachers$ Perception on Low Carbon and Their Empowerment

[[abstract]]Background: The world are in energy crisis. Energy prices are rapidly escalating, foreign energy dependency is increasing, global warming continues unabated, and billions of people worldwide are living without access to energy. The key to solving these crises is the rapid development and deployment of cheap and clean energy, and implementation of low carbon life. Positive public attitudes towards low carbon energy and their acceptance are the key to the success of any energy initiatives and policies concerned. Education is one of the most effective ways to construct an integrated knowledge and background to cultivate critical thinking for energy development and employment. Environmental Education aims at providing people with the appropriate knowledge and capabilities so that environmental issues and their complicate parameters (social, political, economic) can be understood. Since Education can be the catalyst of this process, the role of teachers is very important. Only if teachers are knowledgeable and well disposed towards low carbon energy, the necessary knowledge and values can be properly incorporated into learning process, providing students with the appropriate capabilities to deal with the relevant issues into their daily life. Purpose: This study will be carried out to increase our knowledge on K-12 teachers’ perception and knowledge on low carbon energy. The purposes of this study are: 1) to explore concepts of low carbon so as to develop a questionnaire for surveying teachers’ perception and knowledge on low carbon; 2) to examine models of empowering teachers in order to design curriculum of teacher empowerment; 3) to plan and design k-12 curriculum of teacher empowerment; 4) to develop tools for evaluating effects of curriculum implementation of teacher empowerment by the application of concept maps; 5) to assess the experimental effects of teacher empowerment curriculum. Research Method: questionnaire survey, action research, interview, teaching experiment, and concept maps will be applied in this study for achieving the above purposes. Anticipated results: It can be expected that the results of this study will provide insights on K-12 teachers’ perception on low carbon, and offer suggestions for the government on initiating policies relating to empowering K-12 teachers’ knowledge on low carbon and their relevant teaching abilities. Implications for Research and Practice: The findings will demonstrate the potential and insights of the K-12 teacher empowerment curriculum to be developed by this study to future possible practical application of teacher professional development for enhancing their teaching knowledge concerned energy education, and such insights can be much value to the future study of energy education as well.