As the DfE are no longer funding the collection of data, we are able to open the survey up fully to schools in Scotland, N. Ireland, Wales and England.
By collecting data annually, we hope to evidence the impact of changing curricula and other education policies or national scale interventions on the climate literacy of school leavers across the UK.
If you are in a school which teaches year 11 (England/ Wales), year 12 (N Ireland) or S4 (Scotland) please take part.
Climate education is one of the most effective forms of climate action. But is our current curriculum equipping school leavers with the knowledge, skills and understanding about green careers and the impact of climate change on themselves and their communities?
We are looking for mixed ability, mixed subject choice classes – so this might be best run with forms than, say, with a geography class. It should take 5-10 minutes and should be completed online and in school. The teacher will need to remind students of the school’s postcode.
We will not ‘mark’ or share students responses either to individuals or to the school, so please stress to students that there is nothing to be gained by looking up answers or copying others’ responses.
Each students will be given 5 questions which are the same for everyone, and 5 which are different. These questions have been developed by climate experts and been through cognitive testing with young people.
For Wales, England and N. Ireland we will be collecting data until the end of March 2025.
For students in Scotland, the survey will remain open until the end of June 2025.
We are hoping to collect large quantities of data from a wide range of settings so that we can start looking for patterns in the data.
We are delighted that the DfE have published the results of the 2023/ 2024 Climate Literacy Survey of school leavers (year 11 students), which builds on the initial survey we developed in 2022. Together with an expert group of Society members, we supported the development of the additional 50 questions which were included in the survey this year and we also contributed to the analysis of the data collected.
UNESCO’s Greening Curriculum guidance states that high quality climate education should develop an “action-oriented, holistic, scientifically accurate, justice-driven and lifelong learning approach to climate change”.
This survey is a very important piece of evidence about the state of climate awareness amongst our young people, as well as the key gaps in the climate education they are currently receiving.
One clear message that has emerged from the survey every year, is how poorly the 1.5°C/ 2°C key climate goals are understood, as many respondents thought that the climate had already warmed more than this and most failed to select the correct definition.
Related to this, the concept of ‘Net Zero’ is very poorly understood. As this is a phrase which is in widespread use, from politicians to schools, employers and the media, lack of understanding of it is both surprising and concerning.
Unsurprisingly, there is a correlation between those school leavers who think that climate change will affect them directly and those who are concerned about climate change.
In designing climate education and communication strategies, we rightly consider the need to avoid developing climate anxiety. However, the survey shows that, although most school leavers are ‘fairly concerned’ about climate change more are ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ concerned about climate change than are ‘very concerned’. We should therefore make sure that our focus is on making young people ‘concerned and hopeful’ as only this will lead to effective individual and collective climate action.
One important way to do this is through demonstrating the relevance of climate change to young people, their communities and careers. However, the data collected in the survey showed very low awareness of climate change in the UK, including projected impacts as well as adaptation and mitigation strategies already in place or needed, as well as the cost benefits of mitigation. This will be directly relevant to school leavers’ awareness of the green careers and wider climate action available to them.
A significant proportion do not appreciate that future global warming can still be limited or avoided, highlighting an opportunity for increasing ‘hope’ in climate action amongst young people. Similarly, there was low awareness of the extent of existing renewable energy production in the UK – again missing messages about hope and green careers.
Some specific issues related to the current National Curriculum in England were highlighted by the survey. For example, respondents had poor awareness of the fact that the expansion of water as it warms has contributed roughly as much to sea level rise as the melting of ice. This argues for the need for a curriculum which encourages the application of knowledge and understanding (in this case, that liquids expand when they are heated) to real world contexts or across subjects (i.e. from science to geography).
Another example relates to the current KS3/ 4 geography curriculum where the disproportionate amount of time devoted to teaching past climate change and in particular the Milankovitch cycles seems to have led to respondents overestimating the impact of natural forcing mechanisms on recent climate change.
A concerning finding from the survey relates to perception of the level of scientificconsensus on climate change, with most respondents thinking agreement amongst scientists is significantly lower than it is. This potentially relates to the use of the ‘evaluate’ command word in geography assessments, which necessitates students to present arguments from both sides even if, in reality, the debate is essentially one sided.
While most school leavers recall having been taught about climate change, only just over half remember having covered it in their last year at school when all should have encountered it in GCSE science.
However, reassuringly, the responses indicated that students place a relatively high level of trust in their science teachers as sources of climate change information. This reinforces the need for teachers to have the time and support to keep their own subject knowledge up to date and relevant.
In delivering high quality climate education and communication, we need to be very careful to avoid confusion between climate change mitigation strategies and other sustainability issues. The data collected in the survey demonstrated confusion in particular relating to the impact of the production and use of plastics.
Related to this, there was low awareness of adaptation and mitigation strategies generally, and in particular of effective mitigation actions. The impacts of keeping pets and eating meat on greenhouse gas emissions are generally underestimated whereas the impact of switching lights off and recycling (from the point of view of greenhouse gas emissions) is overestimated. Whether or not a focus on personal carbon footprints (as opposed to that of products, services or organisations) is helpful, this potentially reflects the impact of decades of teaching the ‘easier to handle’ aspects of sustainability, particularly in primary schools.
Climate justice recognises the fact that the people and countries most vulnerable to climate change are often not the ones who have done the most to cause it. Respondents indicated a good awareness of which countries are currently emitting most greenhouse gas, but less awareness of per capita or historical emissions. Similarly, there was limited understanding of regional variations in future temperature changes and their impacts.
The current curriculum review in England may provide an opportunity to improve the climate education delivered in schools.
As the DfE will no longer be funding the delivery of this piece of work, we, the RMetS, plan to run the survey ourselves in all four nations of the UK in the 2024/ 2025 academic year and annually thereafter, in order to track the impact of any changes in curriculum or education policy over time. We collected some baseline data in Scotland and Wales in 2024/ 2025.
Summary of the report’s findings
Just over half of respondents (55%) remembered learning about climate change recently, stating they were aged 15-16 years when they were last taught about it in a lesson at school.
The majority of respondents ‘didn’t know’ (31%) or overestimated (52%) the extent of global warming since 1850.
Respondents correctly indicated that natural changes are generally the least impactful (46%) on global warming. However, there was an overestimation of the contribution from transport (46% thought it contributed more than it does) and disposal of plastic waste (49% thought it contributed more than it does) and a corresponding underestimation of the role of industry and deforestation, agriculture and other land use changes.
More than half of the sample (54%) indicated some concern about climate change.
Almost half of respondents (49%) appreciated that climate change will impact them personally, with 11% expecting a “great deal” of impact and 38% indicating quite a bit.
Respondents showed a good understanding of the difference between weather and climate and of the definition of climate change.
When exploring the causes of global climate variability, respondents tended to overestimate the impact of changes in the Earth’s orbit, but generally appreciated the impact of changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. There was low awareness of the role of large-scale weather patterns.
Carbon dioxide and methane were well recognised as greenhouse gases, water vapour and nitrous oxide less well.
Oil and coal were well recognised as fossil fuels, natural gas less well.
Whilst respondents demonstrated a good awareness of which countries are currently emitting most greenhouse gases, there was less understanding of historical emissions or per capita emissions.
Burning fossil fuels and deforestation are well recognised as sources of carbon dioxide (CO2), however, cement and decomposition were less well recognised.
Respondents demonstrated a good understanding that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has increased over the past 500 years, with 83% correctly identifying an increase.
The majority of respondents (61%) correctly identified livestock as a major source of methane (CH4). However, there was lower awareness of other major sources of methane including landfill and waste, wetlands and rice cultivation.
Whilst respondents were aware of the different sources of greenhouse gases, there was also confusion between methane and carbon dioxide and their respective sources.
Only 18% of respondents correctly identified that over 80% of global climate change since the industrial revolution has been caused by people.
There was a good understanding that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are the main contributing factor impacting the Earth’s temperature.
Respondents presented a variety of perspectives on the stability of the Earth’s climate system, with most recognising its gradual nature (35% gradual, 24 threshold, 17% fragile).
There was a good awareness of common indicators of a warming climate such as melting glaciers (79%) and rising sea levels (74%), as well as the impact of climate change on extreme weather events.
Awareness of geographical variations in future temperature changes and their impacts was weaker.
While respondents demonstrated awareness of the general vulnerability of countries to climate change, they often lack an understanding of how these vulnerabilities vary by region.
The majority of respondents (51%) correctly identified the correct definition of adaptation to climate change, but only 34% correctly identified the correct definition of mitigation.
Larger numbers consistently responded that they didn’t know what mitigation is than indicated that they don’t know what adaptation is.
The majority of respondents correctly identified planting trees in towns and cities (60%) as an adaptation strategy. However, fewer (48%) identified building flood barriers and only a quarter (25%) recognised installing window shades as an adaptation strategy.
Related to this, the data reveals a tendency for school leavers to think that mitigation strategies are adaptation strategies, as well as a low general awareness or understanding of mitigation strategies.
Almost a quarter of respondents indicated that they thought that global temperatures would keep rising if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases were halted, implying low awareness that global warming can still be mitigated.
Only one in five (20%) of respondents were able to identify the correct meaning of ‘net zero’ which is a term widely used in the media and across a diverse range of organisations and employers, whilst twice as many respondents indicated that they did not know (40%). Nearly a third (31%) stated that they didn’t know what the 2°C climate change target was and fewer than one in five (17%) correctly identified it as referring to a global average temperature increase above pre-industrial levels.
Whilst only 6% of respondents said that they didn’t know what a zero carbon footprint was, there was a general underestimation of the impact of diet or keeping pets and an overestimation of the impact of recycling on greenhouse gas emissions.
Half of those sampled (50%) correctly identified carbon capture and storage as the ‘process of trapping emitted carbon dioxide (CO2) and storing it securely’, 21% recognised it as ‘a way of mitigating climate change’ and only 10% were aware that it is part of the UK’s net zero strategy.
Whilst over half of respondents recognised that agriculture could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most school leavers did not recognise that a broad range of other industries could also do so.
Around a third of respondents (34%) correctly identified that the UK climate will become warmer and wetter during winters as the global climate warms.
Almost three quarters (74%) of respondents correctly identified that the UK climate will become hotter and drier during summers as the global climate warms.
The majority (64%) of respondents correctly identified ‘melting glaciers and ice sheets’ as contributors to relative sea level rise around the UK. However, far fewer correctly identified ‘Expansion of sea water as it warms’ (35%).
There was generally good awareness of climate change risks in the UK, particularly of coastal flooding and extreme summer heat.
Only a third of respondents (33%) correctly recognised that it will cost more for the UK to adapt to climate change impacts compared to implementing policies to limit climate change. A higher proportion, 45%, thought that it will cost more for the UK to implement globally agreed policies to limit climate change.
One in 11 respondents (9%) correctly indicated that all of the industries suggested will have to adapt due to the impact that climate change is having on their business. Agriculture (57%), transport (54%) and food supply (52%) were selected by the majority of school leavers.
The majority of respondents indicated a high awareness of solar (76%) as a source of electricity, potentially demonstrating that they appreciated that the solar panels they see on house roofs contribute to the UK’s energy mix. Awareness was lower for other renewables such as offshore wind, nuclear fission, hydroelectric, biomass and on-shore wind.
The majority of respondents (74%) overestimated the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels for the generation of electricity and underestimated the contribution of renewables to UK electricity generation (72%).
Only 22% of respondents thought that between 80-100% of scientists agree on human-caused climate change and 35% thought that fewer than 60% of scientists are in agreement.
The data shows that 35% of respondents correctly identified the UNFCCC’s role in global climate policy and 22% correctly identified the IPCC’s role.
Respondents place a comparatively high level of trust in science teachers (76%) and news sources such as the BBC (58%) for information about global warming, while expressing lower trust in sources including social media (33%), the Prime Minister (26%) and tabloid newspapers (21%).
We’ve been delighted to work with Mastery Science to develop two new science teaching resources which are based on the climate and biodiversity stripes.
These visually striking images instantly convey information about changing global climate and biodiversity.
In the primary resource, students investigate the potential use of green walls to increase biodiversity on their school estate and adapt to climate change.
In the secondary resource, students prepare an (imaginary) submission for the Earthshot prize based on planting Kelp to mitigate climate change and increase biodiversity.
Building on the reports we published in 2023, the booklets exemplify how teachers can demonstrate to students that the skills and understanding that they are already being taught can be applied to the context of climate change, adaptation and mitigation, without increasing curriculum content or teaching load.
In science in particular, in work led by Natalie Vlachakis and supported by the RMetS, teachers are given ideas for how, through considerations of sequencing, to link learning across physics, biology and chemistry in order to deliver a cohesive and holistic climate education.
COP29 will take place in Azerbaijan in November 2024.
Adapt these ideas to support your teaching in the weeks leading up to and during the conference to engage your students with the negotiations and where they are taking place.
The adaptable resource should let you pick ideas from a range which include climate zones, contour drawing, climate graphs, greenhouse gas emissions, map and graph skills in the context of Azerbaijan and climate justice.
Maths is at the centre of all things science, and climate change is no different. To understand climate change, scientists have measured many climatic and weather variables such as temperature, rainfall accumulations, pressure and atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Mathematical skills allow us to explore these observations, finding trends and looking at the statistics. Maths allows us to create equations that allow us to work out what will happen in the future, be it the weather for the weekend or predicting the future climate in 50 years. Maths also helps us to unpick the social science of climate change.
As part of Maths Week Scotland we are challenging secondary students in Scotland to explore the broad topic of climate change and the many possible links it has to mathematics by writing their own maths problems and questions.
This challenge will be split into two sections: writing questions and peer reviewing questions from another group/class.
Part 1: Writing questions
The Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) has recently released the Climate Change Concept Association Tool which brings together more than three hundred climate change concepts in an engaging illustration of how they are linked.
Climate change is linked to 3 main terms – causes, policy and impacts. We are going to focus on causes and impacts.
We suggest splitting the two topics into 2 days; writing questions for causes on Monday 23rd September and impacts on Tuesday 24th September. However, the competition will be live before Scottish Maths Week so you can deliver the question making sessions when it best suits your teaching pattern.
The questions must be linked to each of the topics associated with the ‘causes’ and ‘impacts’ of climate change. The questions should be set at National 4/ 5 level in terms of mathematical skills and style.
Click below to see an example question if the topic set was ‘climate action’.
There are 8 topics associated with CAUSES (Monday):
Climate justice
Science
Feedback loops
Greenhouse gas emissions
Land use change
Natural variability
Liability
Anthropogenic
There are 24 further topics associated IMPACTS (Tuesday).
However, we are going to focus on the 10 terms in bold for the questions:
Arctic/Antarctic
Anthropocene
Adaptation
Behavioural change
Climate zone shift
Climate justice (already done on Monday)
Communication
Ecosystems
Evidence
Extreme weather
Feedback loops (already done on Monday)
Global atmospheric circulation
Health
Hindcasts/projections
Individuals
Infrastructure
Impact assessment
Land use change (already done on Monday)
Migration(people)
Oceans
Permafrost
Regional climate change
Resource loss
Society
Social science
Soil heath
Small island developing states (SIDs)
We advise breaking the class into small groups (of no more than 3) and tasking each group with a couple of topics each. You will need to keep track of who worked on which questions, as there are prizes on offer – however, please don’t tell us the students’ names. For the terms that need more explanation, there is also a glossary on our website.
You can also contact education@rmets.org at any point up to and during the week – just include ‘Maths Week Scotland’ in the subject heading.
Some topics may be more challenging than others, for example creating a maths question around liability. You can use the Climate Change Concept Association Tool for this. Click on liability and it will give you further linked topics. Looking at the glossary term will give you some hints and tips to what the context for the climate could be. Encourage your students to do research into the topics, allowing them to explore and come up with creative questions (some resources: Climate websites). Please note that if the questions involve data, graphs or specific values the references should be included. Questions written should be original. Originality will be checked as part of the reviewing process.
All final questions must be written into the submission document (which can be accessed on the competition hub) and then this emailed to education@rmets.org by 11pm on Tuesday 24th September.
Please make use of the equation editor on PowerPoint if needed, or there are many online equation editors if you would prefer. Please make sure a teacher submits the questions on behalf of the class or a legal guardian if the competition is entered by a student who is home schooled. Entries must be made from Scottish Schools or students who are home schooled from an address in Scotland.
Part 2: Peer reviewing
You will then be given the opportunity to contribute to the reviewing process for the competition. You will score the questions written by another team/school against a number of criteria provided in the score card (which can be accessed on the competition hub). This peer reviewing process will be kept anonymous. Your peer review scores will then be combined with the expert review, undertaken by the RMetS education team and supported by Dr Frost Learning. The expert review will also include the plagiarism checks.
You will receive an email from education@rmets.org by the morning of Thursday 26th September with your assigned questions for reviewing. You will then have until Friday 4th October to complete the reviewing process. We suggest that either the whole class does all the questions and scores each question together, or similarly to the creating process, you split the class into smaller groups to focus on just a few of the questions.
The scores must then be filled in on the score card. Again, please make sure that the form is sent by a teacher or adult on behalf of the group or entrant. Return to education@rmets.org by 11pm Friday 4th October.
Prizes:
18 prizes are on offer – a £5 Amazon voucher per student for the best question written in each topic (up to £15 per group). We will contact you, the teacher/guardian, if one of your questions has won. It is then your responsibility to pass the prize on to the correct group of students who wrote the winning question.
In addition to this, each school/class which submits an entry for all 18 linked questions will be awarded with a certificate.
Future use of questions:
RMetS will add the winning questions from each topic and any other suitable questions to the bank of resources that exist on our education platform, MetLink (similar to the question provided as an example earlier in this document). The questions will be uploaded anonymously to the website, referencing that the questions were created through the Climate Calculations Challenge in collaboration Dr Frost Learning, and supported by Maths Week Scotland.
All documents for the Climate Calculations Challenge, including presentations slides and entry forms, can be found on the challenges page of the Maths Week Scotland website.
As the new UK government begins its stated mission to ‘rebuild Britain’, a group of education and climate experts is calling for sustainability and climate education to be at the heart of its priorities.
In its election manifesto, the Labour party committed to making Britain a clean energy superpower and to a new, modern educational curriculum.
Launched at the Royal Meteorological Society Annual Weather and Climate Conference today (Monday 8 July) in Reading, the National Climate Education Action Plan Curriculum Mapping report shows how these two missions could be linked. The report highlights the many opportunities to bring quality climate and sustainability education into the curriculum.
Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez, of the University of Reading will launch the report today together with Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society.
Professor Charlton-Perez said: “Including climate and sustainability within the curriculum review will be vital to ensuring that the new government delivers long-lasting reform that can prepare young people for the good green jobs of the future.”
Rich curriculum
The report highlights different options to improve climate education from the first week of the new government, and the pros and cons of each of these approaches.
There are opportunities for an expansion of current climate education by adjusting teaching within the current curriculum, or by making small but meaningful changes to current curriculum specifications.
It includes detailed mapping showing where and how climate can fit into the curriculum. These changes could be implemented quickly while a more comprehensive review takes place. The report also highlights how greater inclusion of climate education fits with the desire of the new government to make the curriculum rich, broad and inclusive.
In the foreword to the report, Lisa Hoerning, a recent school leaver, makes clear the desire amongst young people for the forthcoming curriculum review to incorporate climate and sustainability education as a theme that crosses subjects and educational levels.
She said: “The current curriculum studied by young people across England doesn’t educate us on the climate and ecological emergency, and, depending on your subject preferences, you can nearly skip the relevant content entirely.”
She also expressed her hope that that in the near future climate education, as demonstrated in the report, would be integrated across all subjects.
Professor Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at RMetS, said, “Bringing together this report revealed the depth and diversity of work by organisations across the country, looking at ways to improve the climate literacy and green skills of our school leavers. Whilst recognising that curriculum reform could lead to the highest quality climate education, many opportunities already exist within the current curriculum or something very like it for teachers to deliver engaging, relevant, subject- and level-appropriate climate and sustainability teaching. The key to realising these opportunities will be teacher support, incentive and assessment.”
The report was produced by a group of authors from fourteen educational organisations led by Professor Sylvia Knight, of the Royal Meteorological Society, and science education expert Sean McQuaid of the TIDE community and is endorsed by a broad coalition of 60 organisations from schools, colleges, universities, climate charities and educational publishers.
What is climate literacy? Who needs it? When should people develop it and how? What role should climate education play in developing climate literacy, and what does high-quality climate education look like? In this article, for the Teaching Times, Prof. Sylvia Knight explores some of these questions.
Climate education, green skills and careers are part of that vision, all covered by the concept of climate literacy. They also form part of the Climate Action Plans that all schools in England are being asked to create, as well as part of the Action for Climate Empowerment which all signatories to the Paris Agreement are required to report to the UN on a five-yearly basis.
In 2018, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said: ‘Climate change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment’. There are many other significant issues facing the global community at the moment – some linked to the changing climate, some not, but mitigating and adapting to climate change is an issue which will remain significant well into the future. We therefore need to ensure current school leavers are well equipped to engage with it.
“At the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), we believe that every student should leave school with the basic climate literacy that will enable them to engage with the messages put forward by the media or politicians, or to make informed decisions about their own opportunities and responsibilities when it comes to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and also to equip them with the knowledge and skills required for the green careers of the future.”
Professor Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at RMetS
Defining climate literacy
But what is climate literacy? There are many and varied definitions available, but I would argue that it:
Is not just ‘climate science’ literacy;
Can be solutions- and action-focused;
Does not focus exclusively on personal wellbeing or anxiety, ignoring the need for concern about and understanding of the climate;
Does not focus exclusively on personal responsibility or action, ignoring the role of organisations or administrations;
Equips people to be local and global citizens.
Climate literacy is developed through climate education.
At COP 27, UNESCO’s Stefania Giannini said: ‘Education is the most transformational climate adaptation action’. Climate education is both formal and informal and lifelong, but the foundations need to be laid in schools. It is a field where understanding is advancing rapidly, particularly in matters of how to teach about the climate most effectively, how to assess climate education and when to teach it.
Personally, I think that for early years and the first years in primary education, we need to focus on showing children how to enjoy, respect and look after their local environment and developing an understanding of the current weather that affects them ‘here and now’. Later, we can start looking at global issues and longer timescale concepts like climate and climate change – things that are further away both in space and time.
It is very important to consider climate education as a distinct part of wider sustainability or green education. Many teachers favour other education for sustainable development topics such as waste management and biodiversity over climate change – maybe because they are perceived to be easier to teach, more accessible, or less controversial.
Climate change is a global environmental and social issue that underpins many of the Sustainability Development Goals;
There is a demand from young people;
We need a workforce that has the skills required for the green careers of the future;
There is a mandate from the UN to do so;
We currently have low climate literacy among the general public and young people.
In an annual survey of UK school leavers that the RMetS began in 2021, the data collected demonstrated that most 16-year-olds remembered having been taught about climate change, but that their understanding of basic concepts was very poor. In time, the impact of interventions in climate education on young people’s climate literacy should become apparent.
The question then becomes ‘What should all school leavers know and what should some school leavers know, which will give them the foundations that will enable them to be the climate economists, scientists, engineers and lawyers of the future?’
What should climate education be?
Climate education should not be repetitive, delivering the same message in several subjects and levels, but should be complementary – delivering age- and subject-appropriate understanding and skills in a way that, synoptically and progressively, leads to a broad and well-balanced understanding.
Climate education should not be all-encompassing, but we do need students to appreciate, where appropriate, the relevance of climate change to what they are learning (for example, migration in geography) and to appreciate that what they are learning is relevant to climate change. For example, in a lesson covering reflection in physics, one example (just one, not all) could be linked to the warming-amplifying impact of ice melt in the Arctic, or to the efforts being made to shade the Great Barrier Reef with clouds.
Climate education should be interdisciplinary, making use of opportunities for synoptic assessment or teaching sequencing to cross-reference learning across subjects – for example, photosynthesis in biology with the carbon cycle in chemistry.
Climate education could be cross-disciplinary – or, taking it one step further, could be taught as a separate subject. However, this would miss the opportunity to show students that what they are learning in all subjects is relevant to their understanding of climate change, demonstrating links between subjects without duplication of what they are hearing, where appropriate. It would also risk becoming an optional subject or topic. However, synoptic, cross-topic or cross-discipline assessment could provide real opportunities.
Climate education should be relevant to the lives, concerns and careers of students.
Climate education should be adaptive enough to be able to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.
Climate education should develop and balance concern and hope, avoiding fostering anxiety, hopelessness, indifference or boredom.
Where do things stand?
Many organisations have looked for opportunities for climate education in the curriculum. The National Climate Education Action Plan consortium (NCEAP) recently created a report (to be published in early July 2024) bringing together and providing an overview of these studies.
The report will loosely divide them into studies which have looked at where climate education features or could feature in the current curriculum (including work done, for example, in the Natural History Museum’s Rapid Evidence Review by the Education and Training Foundation or the RMetS report on Opportunities for Enhanced Climate Change Education), studies which have looked at where small changes to the curriculum could significantly improve climate education (such as work done by Teach the Future, the Ministry for Eco-Education and the Morecambe Bay Curriculum) or what climate education could look like in a completely new curriculum (such as the Greening Curriculum Guidance published in June 2024 by UNESCO’s Greening Education Partnership).
The NCEAP report concludes that ‘Although a substantive curriculum reform would be ‘gold standard’, significant and effective improvements could be achieved with either of the other approaches if teachers and schools were given support and incentive (including inspection and assessment) to implement them.’
So, if we did have a new, blank-sheet curriculum, what aspects of climate change should be covered? Climate change is a broad and diverse subject that goes beyond the science of how the Earth’s climate system works and how the climate is changing. So, what aspects of climate change should, could or are we teaching in schools?
These are questions relevant to those developing school Climate Action Plans or new curricula – whether at the level of individual schools, Academy trusts or nationally – or by those developing assessment questions.
The RMetS Climate Change Concept Association Tool provides an opportunity to explore and evaluate the coverage of various aspects of climate change. It enables curriculum developers to identify gaps, missed links, duplication, or inadequate progression in their approach to teaching the subject across different subjects and levels.
“Education systems are particularly well positioned to equip learners with a foundation of scientific understanding related to climate change. This foundation also should include an understanding of how society is and can respond to climate challenges, integrating a justice-focused approach, fostering constructive coping strategies, and building leadership skills for transformed futures.”
Greening Curriculum Guidance, 2024
Resources for teachers
There are many, many classroom resources already available to teachers, particularly for subjects such as geography or the sciences, or for primary-level teaching. However, many of these promote misconceptions (a common one being ‘greenhouse gases absorb the sun’s heat’), are out of date, or don’t follow best practice in climate education pedagogy (for example, through fostering anxiety). How should a non-expert, time-pressured teacher identify a high-quality resource?
To aid in this, the NCEAP developed a Quality Control framework which could be used by individual teachers to assess the quality of a source, by resource developers as a reference when creating a new resource or revising an existing one, or by experts asked to assess a given resource against the framework. Teachers can look for the associated quality mark which will be carried, for example, by all the resources with climate change content on the National Education Nature Park website.
Secondary geography teachers probably have the best opportunities for climate education currently and, with several of the exam boards in the process of reviewing the climate content of their GCSE specifications, this will only improve.
In science – surprisingly, given the fundamental nature of climate science to our understanding of the climate system, projections of the future and opportunities for adaptation and mitigation – there are currently far fewer explicit opportunities in the English curriculum. However, the opportunities are there, and they are embodied through a choice of examples and questions that we are beginning to see exemplified by AQA for their trilogy science specification and by Isaac Physics, to name two examples. The same applies to maths, with examples being provided by MEI and Dr Frost Learning.
However, all teachers have the opportunity to deliver high-quality, high-level and subject-specific climate education – given training, incentive and capacity.
Article written by Prof. Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) and a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading in the Schools of Education and of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences.
In conjunction with the Field Studies Council, we have developed a new, flexible resource for secondary geography lessons which allows students to explore the impact of, and potential for adaptation to, extreme heat events (heatwaves) in their schools – both inside and outside.
Launched in time for the 2024 National Festival of Fieldwork, these resources can also be used to give school Sustainability Leads some of the information they need when completing their Climate Action Plans.
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