Impact of Climate Change Education on Environmental Behaviour of Secondary School Students in Adamawa State

This study assessed the impact of climate change education on the environmental behaviour of secondary school students in Adamawa State, Nigeria. The North East region is among the most climate-vulnerable zones in Nigeria, experiencing desertification, erratic rainfall, and Lake Chad shrinkage, making climate change literacy particularly urgent for the region's youth population. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used. Two groups of SS2 students from four secondary schools in Yola North and Mubi South Local Government Areas participated. The experimental group received a structured eight-week climate change education intervention integrated into Biology and Geography lessons, while the control group followed the standard curriculum without the climate intervention. An Environmental Behaviour Scale and a Climate Change Knowledge Test were used as instruments, both validated with reliability indices of 0.80 and 0.78. Analysis of Covariance was applied in hypothesis testing. Results showed significant improvement in both climate knowledge and pro-environmental behaviour among students in the experimental group relative to the control group. Knowledge gains were sustained at a six-week follow-up assessment. Recommendations included formal embedding of climate change topics within the state secondary science curriculum, teacher training in participatory environmental education, and school environmental action projects as part of science assessment. Keywords: climate change education, environmental behaviour, secondary students, Adamawa State, environmental science.