Five Great Reasons To Teach Climate Change In Schools
The climate crisis isn’t some future catastrophe waiting to happen. It’s currently having an impact in sub-Saharan Africa and in low-lying island countries. Natural disasters like flooding, desertification and food shortages are already driving people from their homes, but its effects aren’t as far-away as you might think. Even in Europe, we’re already seeing climate migration, and in Britain who can forget last summer’s record-breaking temperatures and drought? Here, it’s getting hotter with storms and flooding more frequent. That’s particularly bad news for London with the potential for flash-flooding and tidal surges on the Thames. But it’s not all Hollywood-style disasters.
Climate change also poses a risk to our cities’ lungs with a loss of biodiversity in our parks and green areas. It has the potential to exacerbate the decline of many of the plants and animals we know and love. Invasive species, disease, earlier Springs affecting flowering and laying, combined with longer, hotter summers all have the potential to alter the green jewels at the heart of our city — the places where we walk, run, play, escape.
As is too often the case, most of the challenges of climate change are eventually going to have to be borne by our younger generations. Imagine then what we, as a society, could achieve if we started gearing our students not just towards living in a world changed utterly by the climate emergency, but by handing them the tools — the facts, the figures, the education — to help solve the problem they’ve inherited. In educating them about the human impact of climate change we can prepare them to meet that challenge with the clear-headedness, understanding and empathy it needs. We can do it. And it all starts in school.
Why teach about climate change in schools?
1. Young people are the ones who have to deal with it
The focus of education has always been to equip students with the skills they need for life, whether that’s reading, writing, maths or anything else they pick up along the way. An understanding of climate change is now something students need to understand going out in the world. Whatever those young people decide to do in life, it’s certain that climate change is going to impact them in some form. As such, it would be an enormous failing on the part of schools and the curriculum if students didn’t leave school with a general understanding of such an existential problem.
Young people need to believe that climate change is a problem about which they can do something. No, temperatures won’t go back to pre-industrial levels, but scientists argue that doing something is better than doing nothing. Empowering them to do that “something”, whether that’s recycling, walking to school or becoming junior activists has to start early, and in schools that means from primary school up.
2. The scientists need to come from somewhere
In this brave new world, will everyone leaving school decide to go on and study to be a renewable energy engineer or a leading climate scientist? Of course not. But some of them will. Climate change is the big topic in STEM right now, and so it’s going to be for the next couple of centuries. Surely those students heading on to higher levels to study STEM subjects should be equipped with, as well as pens and laptops, as comprehensive a knowledge of the climate change problem as possible, shouldn’t they?
It’s not a job for any one single teacher, but a school-wide, cross-curricular approach ensures that students get the best possible grounding in the subject whatever their field of interest.
3. Just the facts
Disinformation, misinformation, fake news — anyone trying to keep abreast of the science of climate change and its effects has a lot of noise to wade through. That’s where teachers have a big part to play. Teachers are trusted to deliver accurate information in a fair, balanced fashion. Parents can be confident that their kids are getting the right information delivered at the right level, free from conspiracy theory or spin. Whether it’s at primary or secondary level, teachers understand how to present information that’s age-appropriate and not over-complicated; how not to terrify children, but also not to sugar-coat the enormity of the challenge. In a polarised, politicised world of information overload, teachers are the calm, clear voice worth listening to.
4. Remove the politics; make it political
Instilling in students that they truly have the ability to force positive change can be as empowering as it is effective. Providing them with a full set of facts enables them to informedly engage in the political process when it comes to climate change, from something as simple as writing to their MPs, to different forms of activism, to making climate-led choices come election time. Voters (and future voters) participating in the political process is an essential part of a healthy democracy and something which transcends party politics. In advocating for climate action, young people are advocating for themselves, and the ability to do that is something that’ll stay with them their whole lives.
5. The face of change
We get it. People can be set in their ways, and change is often scary. One of the things about humans too is that we sometimes tend not to react to problems until they’re personally facing us or those we love. Older generations may be less receptive to messaging surrounding climate change and the need to start making lifestyle changes for the good of the planet. This is one place where young people can really help play a part in creating change. They’re living reminders to older generations of a future where today’s actions have consequences and making a small change today can help mitigate the harm coming down the line. Young people are ambassadors from the future, and being able to clearly articulate the reality of humankind’s impact on their lives with facts and with an appeal to people’s caring sides can be a persuasive method of getting a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle to do the right thing, to not waste that food, to start a pollinator-friendly community garden or to install those solar panels.
How can ecoACTIVE help?
So, when it comes to teaching about climate change in schools, should we be making seven-year-olds learn statistics about declining rainfall levels like they do their 5 times tables? No way! It has to be fun and interesting whatever the students’ ages and sometimes introducing a fresh face to the classroom can really help keep pupils engaged with big, long-term projects like teaching about climate change. ecoACTIVE offers sessions and workshops aimed at all age levels from primary to secondary on topics such as food waste, recycling, ecology and biodiversity to tougher topics like sustainability and the climate crisis.
Why not get in touch and book a session with us? We know how to really bring environmental education to life with practical, fun tasks to both open students’ (and teachers’!) eyes and give them the skills they need to make a difference.
