[U-14] Current status and issues of the earth education necessary for living on the changing earth

[U14-02] Variations in the promotions of high schools offering Basic and Advanced Earth Science classes in Prefectures throughout Japan

★Invited Papers

*Hideo Takagi¹, Kohei Yoshida² (1.Department of Earth Science, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, 2.Higashi Fukuoka High School)

Keywords:high-school curriculum, establishment rate, Earth science subject

The subject of science in Japanese high school is divided into physics, chemistry, biology and Earth science, and the number of credit is set to 2 for basic subjects and 4 for advanced subjects. With the change of courses based on the new course of study guidelines enforced by MEXT in 2012, the Earth science field has classes in Basic Earth Science (BES) and Advanced Earth Science (AES). However, the percentages of high schools that offer Earth science classes in each prefecture have not been reported. Therefore, we have estimated the proportion of high schools that offer BES and AES classes in a survey of more than 5,000 high schools in Japan. Data for the survey were collected from the curriculum listed in each high-school homepage and from a questionnaire distributed using the Google mail system. Survey results indicate that 43.7% of high schools offer BES, and only 8.8% of high schools offer AES nationwide. In addition, the proportion of high schools offering Earth science classes varies depending on the prefecture. The top prefectural percentage for AES is 48% (Okinawa) and then 38% (Chiba), but nine prefectures have no high schools that offer AES.The percentage of high school students who take Earth science classes is also estimated from the number of textbooks adopted by MEXT (26% for BES and 1.2-0.9% for AES). The proportion of high schools offering Earth science correlates with the number of teachers over the past 40 years employed in Earth science in each prefecture. However, some prefectures have records only of the total number of science teachers, therefore the numbers of teachers hired specifically for Earth science are unknown in these cases. The percentage of high schools offering Earth science classes is higher in prefectures for which only the total number of science teachers is known. Based on our results, for the promotion of high school geoscience education, supports should be provided through workshops in Earth science education, so that science teachers other than full-time Earth science can recognize the importance of Earth science and teach BES whose establishment rate has increased since 2012.
Reference: Yoshida, K. and Takagi, H., 2020, Journal of Geography (Chigaku Zasshi), 129, 337-354.