The Royal Meteorological Society’s collaboration with Time for Geography was recognised with the Highly Commended Geographical Association Publishers Award.
Time for Geography is the UK’s open-access, dedicated video platform for geography and geoscience education, developed in partnership with leading universities, employers and educational organisations.
The award recognises careers videos and resources developed to guide young people towards further study, training and careers connected to the weather & climate sector, and reflects the educational value of a collaboration designed to strengthen the future geography-geoscience talent pipeline.
The recognition comes as Time for Geography, in partnership with the Royal Meteorological Society and others, delivers the largest ever Geography-Geoscience careers intervention across UK schools and universities through its national and international audience. Having already reached an audience of over 2.5 million this academic year, the initiative is not only delivering scale, but is now also receiving national recognition from the educational community for the quality and value of what it is producing for students, teachers and schools. Through a Careers Insight Videos collection, Careers Explorer, Jobs and Opportunities Portal and Options and Open Days Pack, the collaboration is helping young people understand where geography can lead, how school and university pathways connect to careers, and what real opportunities exist in sectors such as weather & climate.
This work forms part of RMetS’ broader mission to support education and skills development across the weather and climate sector. By working collaboratively with partners, the Society seeks to strengthen the pipeline of future talent, ensuring that young people are better equipped to engage with – and contribute to – the challenges and opportunities presented by a changing climate.
Ellie Pinches, RMetS Education Officer, was also shortlisted for the Geographical Association’s Journal Award for her article in Teaching Geography which addresses eight of the commonest weather and climate misconceptions we have identified in teaching resources and assessment materials, and evidenced in responses to the Royal Meteorological Society’s annual climate literacy survey.
The GA Journal Award is presented to articles which have made the greatest contribution to the development of good practice amongst geography teachers.
Sylvia Knight, RMetS Head of Education, shares insights into the climate literacy of UK school leavers, common misconceptions in classroom and assessment resources, and opportunities for climate education in the science curriculum in an article for School Science Review (access restricted to subscribers).
Ten-point plan to deliver climate education in England unveiled by experts
Capitalising on greater climate change, nature and sustainability education in the national curriculum in England will need a detailed programme of support to make the changes a reality, according to a new report published today (Wednesday, 4 March).
The report, produced following discussions with more than 40 professional bodies and teaching organisations, sets out ten priority areas for improving climate education following the government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review.
The experts argue that while the curriculum review is a welcome step, real change will require coordinated support across the whole education system. It also urges Ofsted to incorporate schools’ sustainability actions and climate change, nature and sustainability education into their inspection framework.
Professor Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society and a Visiting Professor at the University of Reading, said: “The curriculum review has created real momentum for change. We want to make sure that translates into effective climate education in every classroom. Having identified these ten priority areas we can now work together towards achieving them.”
The ten priority areas are:
Quality-controlling classroom resources — making sure materials from major publishers are accurate, up to date and adaptable for local use
Reforming exam specifications — ensuring climate and nature are examined across multiple subjects, with specifications that can be updated as the science develops
Expanding enrichment opportunities — ensuring all students have equal access to climate-related activities outside the classroom
Supporting teachers — better training and resources across all subjects, including guidance on handling controversial issues in the classroom
Defining essential content — making the basics of climate change causes, consequences and solutions compulsory for every student
Keeping the focus on solutions — more emphasis on renewable energy, nature restoration and green careers in lessons, training and exams
Improving coherence and sequencing — clearer links between subjects and year groups to avoid repetition and build on prior learning
Embedding green skills — weaving data, digital and critical thinking skills into climate and nature teaching across all subjects
Strengthening the wider community — closer working between publishers, subject experts, industry and young people
Applying a climate lens to every subject — bringing climate and nature into subjects beyond the obvious ones, and ensuring it is covered in teacher training from the start
The report ends by setting out a vision for what successful reform of the education system would look like by 2031. Contributors include the Royal Meteorological Society, the University of Reading, University College London, the National Association for Environmental Education, Global Action Plan, the Council for Subject Associations, the Royal Geographical Society and Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
Professor Sylvia Knight is available for interview. Contact the RMetS Press Office on 0118 208 0142 or comms@rmets.org.
Additional quotes:
Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez, climate scientist at the University of Reading and chair of the National Climate Education Action Plan, said: “Climate change touches every part of our lives, so it makes sense that it should touch every part of the education young people receive. The reforms to the Science, Geography and Design and Technology curriculum are really welcome, but what our workshop highlighted is the distance still left to travel to ensure that the education system can deliver on these reforms. We highlighted ten priority areas we think need attention to make a real difference.”
Dr Alison Kitson, Programme Director, UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education at University College London, said: “Any reform to the education system needs to think clearly about what its end goals are. Our report highlights a collective vision for how they could improve the educational experience not just for young people but for teachers, school leaders and many others.”
Dr Morgan Phillips, Associate Director, Global Action Plan, said: “Our report highlights the careful thought, planning, and flexibility that is needed to weave climate change, nature and sustainability education into both the national curriculum and the education system more broadly. This requires collaboration and cooperation across subject disciplines and by curriculum makers at every level of the education system. It has never been more important to facilitate conversations between the department, the curriculum drafters, resource providers, exam boards and, of course, teachers and learners. This report highlights that these conversations are happening, they need to continue throughout the months and years to come.”
Liz Moorse, Chief Executive of the Association of Citizenship Teaching and co-chair of the Council for Subject Associations said: “We must seize this unique moment in education policy to unite education leaders and subject teachers behind a shared mission: to teach environmental change, its impacts and the possible solutions for a more sustainable future. Our report sets out a vision to create a whole system approach so that no child is left without this essential education.”
Christine Ozden, the first Global Director for Climate Education, at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, said: “Today’s young people will inherit the most consequential impacts of climate change and the responsibility to respond to them. We want to support schools to empower them from reception up, so they have the expertise and ability to evaluate evidence, to think critically and to take on jobs in new industries shaped by a green economy.
“The UK Government’s recent Curriculum and Assessment Review made positive changes to integrating climate into education. Like the report authors, we see the opportunity and need to embed it right across the curriculum.
“This is an excellent report that shares and builds on the expertise and hard work of many people and organisations. Cambridge is proud to have contributed. We are already embedding climate education in our qualifications to ensure that this generation is equipped to contribute to local and global responses to the environmental changes that happen in their lifetimes. Climate change is the defining challenge of our age, and climate education is essential across the curriculum.”
Myles McGinley, Managing Director of Cambridge OCR, said: “This timely report echoes what teachers and students tell us: they want to see more about climate change and sustainability in the curriculum.
“Just as climate change touches on every aspect of our lives, it should be present across a student’s education. This is more than just adding a worthy topic to the curriculum. Student engagement and attendance are increasingly challenging for many schools. Part of the solution is providing a curriculum that is engaging and relevant to young people and provides them with the knowledge and skills they need for life and work in a rapidly changing world.
“Today’s report notes that there will also be an important place for more climate-relevant qualifications. This is something we have found in the positive response to our certificate in sustainability, aimed at young people who are interested in the green economy. The curriculum, and qualifications available to young people, must never stand still.”
From January – June 2025 the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) again collected data to evidence the climate literacy of school leavers (S4 in Scotland, year 11 in England/ Wales, year 12 in N. Ireland) across the UK. This built on the data collected by the DfE in 2024 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/climate-literacy-amongst-school-leavers), which in turn built on the surveys run by the RMetS in 2022 and 2023.
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, at a time when the curriculum is being reviewed, refreshed or developed in all 4 Nations of the UK.
Key differences from the 2024 data were that
The full set of 55 questions were used in all 4 Nations of the UK. Last year, only the ‘core’ set of 5 questions were used in Scotland and Wales.
Instead of working with Ipsos to collect data, we recruited schools through our own communication channels as well as those of our partner organisations. As a result, the data was less well sampled and particularly biased towards Independent girls’ schools in England.
The differences in the results we obtained may therefore be because of the greater representation of students particularly from Scotland, less representative data or changes over time. However, we would not yet expect to see curriculum changes (e.g. in Wales) over the last few years to be reflected in the data we have collected.
Unfortunately, no usable data was collected from Northern Ireland.
National differences may reflect differences in curricula but can also be influenced by local issues, priorities and communication.
Students in England are more likely to remember having learned about climate change in the previous two years of education (65%), than those in Scotland or Wales (45%), who may not have learned about climate change since primary school.
We saw a dramatic increase in the number of students correctly identifying the meaning of ‘Net Zero’ from 10% in 2024 to 46% in 2025, albeit with national differences – although 54% of respondents in England could select the correct answer, only 33% could in Wales. This is a phrase which is in widespread use, by politicians, schools and employers, and an improvement in understanding may be due to improved coverage by the media.
We found an increase in the number of students reporting concern about climate change with 23% of respondents said they are ‘very’ concerned this year, compared to 12% in 2024 and similar values in England, Scotland and Wales. In contrast to last year, more students report being concerned about climate change than not concerned. As in other studies, we see a larger number of girls reporting that they are ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ concerned about climate change.
Unsurprisingly, there remains 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 but we should 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 shows continuing very low awareness of climate change in the UK, including projected impacts as well as adaptation and mitigation strategies already in place or needed.
Related to this, there was low awareness of the extent of existing renewable energy production in the UK. This will be directly relevant to school leavers’ awareness of the green careers and wider climate action available to them. Students in Scotland, which has the highest number of on-shore wind turbines in the UK, are more likely to recognise that wind power is being used to generate a lot of electricity than in England, whereas students in England are more likely to recognise solar power.
Over 75% of students still 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, again missing messages about hope and green careers.
Some specific issues related to current curricula and the siloing of climate change in geography 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, learning in science that liquids expand when they are heated) to real world contexts (sea level rise). Another example relates to the fact that only 55% of students recognised that respiration was a source of carbon dioxide, suggesting that many could not relate learning about organisms to the wider global carbon cycle.
Another example relates to the current KS3/ 4 geography curriculum in England 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. For the first time, we have enough data to compare responses between Nations. Students in England were least likely to recognise that over 80% of warming since the Industrial Revolution has been caused by humans (24% in England, 28% in Scotland, 33% in Wales). Students in England were also most likely to say that sunspots could affect the temperature of the Earth ‘a lot’ (24% in England, 11% in Scotland) and that changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun could affect the temperature of the Earth ‘a lot’ (58% in England, 37% in Scotland).
The number of students correctly identifying that the vast majority (over 97%) of scientists agree about the causes of climate has increased substantially from last year (37% from 22%), although most respondents still think scientific consensus is significantly lower than it actually is. This potentially relates to the use of the ‘evaluate’ command word in geography assessments (most frequently seen in N Ireland and England), which necessitates students to present arguments from both sides even if, in reality, the debate is essentially one sided. Students in Wales were least likely to recognise scientific consensus.
However, reassuringly, the responses indicated that students place a relatively high level of trust in their science and geography 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.
There remains poor understanding and awareness of adaptation and mitigation strategies generally, and in particular of effective ways to reduce climate change. 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. This potentially reflects the impact of decades of teaching the ‘easier to handle’ aspects of sustainability, particularly in primary schools and highlights misconceptions about the efficacy of personal actions and their contribution to GHG emissions. This relates to the common focus in schools on personal carbon footprints rather than those of goods, services and organisations. A focus on personal carbon footprints can generate feelings of guilt, lack of agency, or disengagement whilst, as we have highlighted, focussing on actions which in practice have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions. There was particularly low awareness of nature-based solutions to climate change.
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. This may be evidence of a ‘case study’ approach to teaching in geography, with focus on one or two countries without putting them in context with our own country, or the global whole. Knowledge rich understanding should develop learning which can be applied beyond the specific case studies or examples considered in assessment specifications.
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. This year, only 15% of students could correctly identify the meaning of the goal (a similar proportion to last year). When asked how much the Earth has warmed since the pre-industrial period, although very few (17%) selected the correct answer, 1.1-1.4°C, we saw a shift in the mode from 2.7°C -2.8°C in 2024, to 1.5°C-1.6°C in 2025 with also far fewer students selecting that they did not know the answer. Students in Scotland were more likely to overestimate current global warming or responded that they did not know the answer.
As the Curriculum is being reviewed/ refreshed in England, Scotland and N Ireland and the new curriculum is being embedded in Wales, there is an ideal opportunity for curriculum designers to assess the opportunities for climate education within their curriculum and, critically, to ensure appropriate sequencing of knowledge, understanding, skills and values across subjects and levels.
The DfE in England’s Curriculum and Assessment review interim report specifically states that: “Rapid social, environmental and technological change necessitates that the curriculum keep pace; including a renewed focus on digital and media literacy, and a greater focus on sustainability and climate science.”
The Royal Meteorological Society believes that every student should leave school with the basic climate literacy that would 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 understanding and skills required to thrive in the green careers of the future.
For this to be possible, it is vital that they are able to critically apply their knowledge, understanding and skills to the contexts they encounter in their current and future lives.
In March 2025, we invited representatives from a broad range of subject and professional organisations to come together in a workshop kindly hosted by the University of Reading.
The aim of the workshop was to begin defining a Curriculum for Climate Literacy which, as part of a much wider curriculum, would equip students with the climate literacy needed for their lives as local and global citizens, and with the skills for careers shaped by a changing climate. By bringing together those with subject and subject-teaching expertise we hoped to develop a well sequenced, coherent, holistic and progressive curriculum.
Critically, what should all students know when they leave school, and what should some students, through their choice of subjects, know to equip them for specific further training/ study and careers?
Since the workshop, we have worked with many of these organisations to establish the Curriculum for Climate Literacy, which we hope those now developing national curricula, exam specifications and school level curricula will find useful.
The Core Principles of the Curriculum for Climate Literacy:
All students should leave school with the necessary climate literacy required to thrive as citizens of a world where the climate is changing, irrespective of their subject choices.
Climate literacy includes an understanding of climate science as well as the complex social and economic factors which relate to an understanding of the interaction between people and the climate system.
Climate change is a multi-disciplinary problem that requires a multi-disciplinary approach to both learning and solutions. Systems thinking is key, and the climate system (as well as the Earth’s natural, social and political systems) span school subject disciplines.
We have aimed to create a well sequenced, progressive curriculum where disciplinary or ‘substantive’ knowledge and understanding is developed progressively and is not repetitive or tokenistic.
We have supplied very detailed information – so that this can be implemented in any school curriculum, whatever its national framework. The detail is necessary to ensure equitable provision of high-quality climate education which is not dependent on teacher expertise or awareness.
We acknowledge the risk of curriculum overload and have endeavoured to suggest an appropriate amount of content in each subject. However, in some subjects, there does need to be a significant proportion of the curriculum dedicated to climate literacy.
The curriculum should have the flexibility to keep up to date with climate science, climate solutions (adaptation and mitigation) and the current state of the world, not least because this keeps it relevant to the skills for green careers options open to school leavers. A mechanism for regular review and update should be a part of the curriculum approach.
The curriculum should be flexible enough for teachers to be able to adapt it to local and current contexts.
Critical thinking should be embedded throughout the curriculum. It has relevance beyond climate literacy but is particularly relevant here.
Teacher support is critical to delivery of this curriculum. We recognise that significant teacher training and CPD will be required to allow confident delivery of high-quality climate education, as well as classroom resource provision.
A common language is critical for a curriculum for climate e.g. including consistent definitions at curriculum and setting level and across subjects. For example, when referring to climate actions and solutions in this document, we include mitigation, adaptation and, where appropriate, loss and damage payments, on a personal to global scale.
This is a Curriculum for Climate Literacy, not specifically for biodiversity or wider sustainability or environmental issues, whilst recognising that these topics are not entirely separable from climate literacy, because that is where our (RMetS) expertise lies.
This is a curriculum of hope, focussed as much as possible on actions and solutions as well as students’ futures, such as green careers, whilst still developing sound understanding of climate change and its far-reaching implications.
Subjects with a strong connection to a related career in climate change have these links explicitly developed within them, helping to meet Gatsby Benchmark 4: ‘Linking curriculum learning to careers.’
We have highlighted sequencing links to other subjects but assumed progression within the same subject (e.g. across the sciences).
Climate literacy supports global and local citizenship.
Climate literacy supports stewardship of the Earth and its resources.
This curriculum is focussed on knowledge and understanding. Skills & values constitute an equally vital part of a complete and coherent curriculum, as do the pedagogical/ how to teach aspects.
Access the full document for the detailed recommendations according to subject and level.
In compiling this Curriculum for Climate Literacy we have drawn on the work done by many organisations including, but not limited to, UNESCO’s Greening Education Partnership, TIDE, CAPE and SOS-UK.
Today UNESCO are celebrating the International Day of Education, recognising the role of education for peace and development globally. The role of education is becoming ever more important as the global society develops in the face of a changing climate.
Climate education is one of the most effective forms of climate action, and the foundations should be laid at school. Climate education should not only ensure ‘climate science’ literacy, but also focus on climate action and solutions and look at both the roles of individuals and organisations or administrations, all whilst steering away from causing climate anxiety.
But are the current curricula across the UK providing the climate education to ensure students leave school with the basic climate literacy, enabling them to engage with messages put to them by the media or politicians, and to make decisions about their own personal responsibilities? The Society believes that school education should ensure that students do leave school with exactly this level of climate literacy.
The Society’s current and future education work
The Society’s Education Team works to support the delivery of climate education, whether that be supporting changes to the curricula, providing weather and climate CPD for teachers, or providing classroom resources.
Today, we would like to highlight and celebrate some of the work the education team is currently working on, and what there is to look forward to in the first half of the year:
Launching and collecting responses for the 2025 Climate Literacy Survey
If you teach, or communicate with those who do teach:
Year 11 (England/ Wales)
Year 12 (N Ireland)
S4 (Scotland)
Please participate in the 2025 Climate Literacy survey.
This builds on the 2023/2024 Climate Literacy report that was published by the DfE at the end of 2024. 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.
Developing new climate change adaptation resources for GCSE geography
These new resources will feature two new extreme weather case studies, including a heatwave case study in the UK. The resource will also support the teaching of global adaptation strategies, a term the 2023/2024 Climate Literacy Survey identified poor understanding of.
Weather and Climate subject days for Geography PGCE students
We provide a subject specific training days to students training to become geography teachers. Secondary geography teachers probably have the best opportunity to deliver climate education in the current curricula. Supporting the foundation of their weather and climate knowledge will strength the teaching of current and future students and reduce the misconceptions which we often see being taught.
With the education team growing in 2024, we have been able to reach more courses and students than ever before.
Weather and Climate: A Teachers’ Guide – More for Teachers CPD videos
The Education team are making 20 new short videos to support teachers’ CPD. These videos accompany ‘Weather and Climate: A Teachers’ Guide’, a scheme of work for geography students aged 11 – 14+ years, and closely follow the CPD material, ‘More for Teachers’, published alongside the guide.
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.
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.
