Activity Proposals to Improve Children’s Climate Literacy and Environmental Literacy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is well presented and easily to follow. I have included some minor comments in the pdf attached in order to improve the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

dear reviewer
Your suggestions are very important to us. They all deserve our attention, so we've sent you a new version of our article with your suggestions. 
NOTE: the article we have sent you has been modified in agreement with other reviewers. 
We have compiled the changes we have made:
1. we changed the word chapter to section;
2. included the objectives of the work before the materials and methods;
3. deleted figure 1, as suggested;
4. improved the punctuation as suggested;
5. we have improved and corrected other sentences that you had suggested.

Thank you for your tips, and feel free to suggest anything else. If something is not to your liking, please do not reject the article, we will be happy to improve it. 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The title and abstract are adequate, the introduction gives enough background, the material and methods section are stated clearly, the conclusion section is coherent with the results. The references are correct.

I enjoyed reading a well written article about a needed topic.

Author Response

Dear revisor;
Thank you very much for liking our article. 
Your words mean a lot to us.
Thank you very much.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work is interesting since the current climate emergency requires teachers at all levels of education to work on climate literacy.

However, I see certain shortcomings and room for improvement in this work.

1. The theoretical framework is a bit poor, it may be true that climate change has not been worked on in depth in the school context, but there are many works on environmental education and education for sustainability, it is possible to mention some of these works that include more or less explicitly climate literacy, climate change is one of the urgent problems of planetary unsustainability, but linked to many others.

2. The authors state in line 66 "in order to answer the research questions..." but where are the research questions? The authors do not formulate questions, nor do they clearly state the objectives.

3, Imprecision such as "a total of around..." cannot be used when referring to the participants in the study. The exact number must be given.

4. In the methodology section, the following sub-sections should be set out:

(a) Sample. This section should include a table showing clearly how many schools are involved in the study. as well as the grade, classes, and number of children per class involved in the activities. They should explain how they obtained children’s permission to  participate in the study and the recordings.

(b) Technique and instruments. Here the technique of focus groups should be described, which is NOT the same as semi-structured interviews, they are two techniques within the qualitative methodology of data collection that have nothing to do neither in the way they are conducted nor in the number of participants. The authors should also explain who (experience, position held, etc.) the experts are, how many and what questions they were asked for the validation of the focus group’s questions.

(c) Teaching activities and resources. Here they should describe the activities organized according to curricular elements, i.e. subjects in which they are integrated, grade or if they are interdisciplinary, learning objectives, timing, materials and resources, attention to diversity, etc.

5. In relation to the results, these must be organized according to the objectives that must be clear and listed at the beginning of the study.

The data analysis must be done through a system of selecting keywords and identifying codes that in turn can be organized into categories. Not all verbatim answers should be included.

6. The discussion and conclusions must also be ordered by the objectives of the study that are not clear from the beginning of the work.

Finally, the authors must include a reference to SDG 12 sustainable consumption and production since this is the objective clearly linked to the Ecological Footprint.

Author Response

Dear reviewer;
Your suggestions were very useful for our work, they all gave us a new vision of the overall work. 

That's why we're sending you the new work, with the appropriate suggestions, marked with comments. But here is a brief description of the changes.

1. We have included the main objective of the work in the abstract. We have written it briefly, but before the methodology we have written the objectives in more detail.

2. We've improved the question "a total of around" by adding the exact value. 

3. In the methodology, we've included a table with the number of schools, the number of children each and the number of kids per session.

4. We've made a better description of the focus group, removing the semi-structured interview part, as suggested;

5. we have added more detailed information about the experts who validated the activity guide, and we have included information about the changes we made to the original guide until it was finalized. 

6. we have included information on how the activities were organized according to the curricular elements.

7. We have included SDG 12;

8. The results are now in line with the objectives that emerged at the beginning of the work. They also follow the mdpi standard when it comes to focus groups. 

Thank you once again for your valuable tips, please contact us again if anything doesn't agree and please don't reject the article. We will be happy to read your valuable advice. 

Many thanks

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I believe that the authors have made the suggested changes and that the work has improved considerably. The only thing missing now is the inclusion in the introduction of some literature references on the ecological footprint; what it is and how it can be used in education. This is a very powerful tool to make visible how our consumption habits impact the earth (SDG12), something that is not clear when the authors include this goal.

Author Response

Dear reviewer;
Thank you once again for your valuable suggestions and comments. 
As you suggested, we have added a short text in the introduction (line 47 to 55) about the ecological footprint, and the mission of schools to give importance to this concept.

In which we mention: 

(...) 

that they may be able to reduce their ecological footprint, defined as the total area of land needed to provide the natural resources that an individual (a student or a community, for example, a school) consumes, and its capacity to absorb the waste and pollution it produces [10]. In the context of climate change, schools should raise awareness and offer a series of strategies aimed at helping students understand the connection between their behavioral choices and their impact on ecological systems, to make it possible for students to think critically about their choices and the environmental consequences of those choices, and to feel the responsibility they have as members of a community for active sustainability, in order to increase climate literacy [11].

I hope you like it.
Thank you once again for your valuable suggestions to enrich our work.

 

[10] Wackernagel M, Rees WE. Our ecological footprint: Reducing human impact on the Earth. 2nd ed. Vol. 9. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publ; 2007. 

[11] Gottlieb D, Vigoda-Gadot E, Haim A, Kissinger M. The ecological footprint as an educational tool for sustainability: A case study analysis in an Israeli public high school. International Journal of Educational Development. 2012 Jan;32(1):193–200. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2011.03.007