Impact of Teaching and Learning of Physics on Awareness and Mitigation of Pollution and Airborne Diseases in North-West Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of teaching and learning of physics on awareness and mitigation of pollution and airborne diseases among secondary school students in North-West Nigeria. Environmental challenges in the region, including high particulate matter from traffic emissions, biomass cooking practices, and Harmattan dust, contribute significantly to respiratory health burdens. The objectives of the study includes the examination of the effect of enriched physics instruction on students' awareness of pollution and airborne diseases, the determination of gender differences in environmental awareness after physics-based intervention and the assessment of the effectiveness of physics education in promoting positive environmental mitigation attitudes. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest control group design involving secondary school students from selected institutions across Kano, Kaduna, and Katsina States. A total of 320 Senior Secondary II students participated, with 160 assigned to experimental groups and 160 to control groups using stratified random sampling. The intervention consisted of enriched physics instruction integrating environmental physics concepts such as atmospheric particle dispersion, thermodynamics of combustion, and fluid dynamics of airborne particles. Data were collected using the Physics-Environmental Awareness Questionnaire (PEAQ) and the Pollution and Airborne Disease Awareness Test (PADAT), both demonstrating acceptable reliability coefficients (Cronbach's alpha = 0.88 and 0.91 respectively). Results indicated significant improvement in environmental awareness among the experimental group. The experimental group recorded a pretest mean awareness score of 46.3% (SD = 11.4) and a posttest score of 79.5% (SD = 8.7), showing an improvement of approximately 33.2%. A paired sample t-test revealed significant differences between pretest and posttest scores, t(159) = 14.62, p < .001, Cohen's d = 1.32. The control group showed minimal improvement from 45.8% to 52.1%. The study concludes that physics instruction integrated with environmental applications significantly improves awareness of pollution and airborne disease risks. The findings support sustainable education frameworks and underscore the need for curriculum reform in Nigerian science education.