Environmental Responsiveness of Junior Secondary School Mathematics Textbooks in South-West, Nigeria

Abstract

Environmental degradation is on the rise in varying grades and shades. The sustainability of the planet largely depends on the responsiveness of citizens to their environment. The compulsory nature of Mathematics at the Junior secondary school level makes it a leveller for the inculcation of values and good attitude towards responsible occupancy of space through environmental responsiveness of mathematics texts. The research adopted the Case Study design using two JSS 2 mathematics textbooks purposively selected based on use in public and private schools; Nigerian authorship and conformity with the 2013 Universal Basic Education Mathematics Curriculum. The study was guided by three research questions. Data was collected by appraising the environmental awareness of content under different sections: Objectives, Examples, Puzzles/Activities and Exercises. Statistical tools employed for data analysis are frequency counts, percentage, and clustered column bar charts. Findings revealed that the level of environmental responsiveness of mathematics texts is poor and featured between 1.89 to 13.33% environmental sensitivity within Objectives, Examples, Puzzles/Activities and Exercises. As well, multiple authored text was more environmentally responsive than the single authored text under three of the four sections. It was recommended that authors should relate more examples and exercises to practical ecofriendly issues and publishers should embrace collaborative authorship for better and more environmentally responsive text contents