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Labour has adopted our Climate Education Bill in their draft policy programme ahead of the general election, read about what this means for our campaign.
Children should be taught climate change in more depth and in all subjects, experts and students themselves have told BBC News.
“Without climate education, I don’t see the value in going to school at all,” says Eleanor Andrade May, a quantitative social science student at the University of Sheffield (p 4). This is a disconcerting statement. When students are unable to see the connection between their studies and their future, it suggests a deep flaw in our education system. Fundamentally, we are failing our young people. But young people are taking action. Eleanor is part of Teach the Future, a youth-led campaign that aims to repurpose the UK’s entire education system around the climate emergency, and this action makes for a very positive statement. Teach the Future’s vision is for broad climate education in the UK. Futurum’s vision is to help students connect the subjects they are learning in school to real-world research projects, all of which aim to solve pressing societal needs. Where there is vision, there is action, and this is how to teach the future.
Many teachers and pupils frustrated over climate education despite ministers’ pledge to prioritise it
Current education system ‘failing to prepare young people’, Labour MP says.
Young people are becoming empowered to reorientate the education system around climate action, social justice and sustainability – to ensure generations are learning about the right things in school.
The first student-led Bill on climate education is to have its second reading in the Commons on Friday
The first student-led Bill on climate education is to have its second reading in the Commons on Friday
A Leeds teacher has warned schools are “in danger of preparing students for a world that’s no longer going to exist” due to climate crisis.
A new survey reveals two-thirds of teachers believe climate change is not taught adequately in schools – as the student-written Climate Education Bill heads for its second reading in parliament.
In this paper we present an analysis of the sustainability and climate change strategy for education and children's services systems in England, produced by the Department for Education. Using critical discourse analysis, we juxtapose qualitative data collected from >200 youth teachers and teacher educators in the context of co-creating a manifesto for education and environmental sustainability. Through analysis of these two datasets, we evaluate the government's proposals for climate education and sustainability. We find that the strategy foregrounds economic concerns, with educational priorities driven by the ‘net zero’ policy agenda, and an over-reliance on increased science-focused knowledge and skills. The strategy suggests an absence of governmental responsibility and attention to the political dimensions of climate change. This is in contrast to stakeholder perspectives which see economic priorities as part of the problem and call for pro-environmental action at all levels, including from policymakers. The strategy has a depoliticising effect as it introduces additional demands for teachers and schools without the associated enabling policy environment. We argue that the strategy runs the risk of becoming a placebo for policy, with the appearance of ‘doing something’ whilst failing to address the fundamental policy problem.
Climate change will inevitably big a huge part in our children's future, so how do we teach them about it, while still protecting their innocence? On this week's episode of Sky News ClimateCast, host Sarah Hewson is joined by Teach the Future campaigner Scarlett Westbrook, who tells us how she's on her way to changing the school education system to have climate change embedded into the curriculum.
This week, the first-ever student-written education bill was presented to UK Parliament. The English Climate Emergency Education Bill was brought forward by 25-year-old Nadia Whittome, MP for Nottingham East and youngest current member of Parliament. 17-year-old Scarlett Westbrook, a prominent youth climate activist and Teach the Future member, was one of the students involved in putting the bill together.
A new climate education bill has been called for matters relating to climate change and sustainability to be integrated throughout the curriculum in primary and secondary schools and included in vocational training courses.
Nadia Whittome told MPs her bill to integrate climate change and sustainability into the curriculum would ‘prepare young people for the future'. She said that if the education system “isn’t preparing young people to help mitigate and deal with the impacts of climate change, then it is failing them”.
A bill calling for the climate crisis to be taught across the whole of the school curriculum is set to be tabled in parliament, with those involved saying it is the first-ever to be written by students.
On Tuesday 23rd, there's a ten-minute rule bill from Labour's Nadia Whittome to require climate change and sustainability to become key content across the school curriculum, integrated into every subject. The bill is the culmination of her work with Teach the Future - a school pupil-led group - on climate education and the decarbonisation of the education sector.
Following the IPCC report issuing its most severe warning on climate yet, students from across the country came together outside the Department of Education to demand urgent action over a curriculum which is failing to address the current crisis.
Since 2010, we've researched the expectations and experiences of students in higher education in relation to sustainability, and in 2016 we extended the research to also gather the views of students in further education. We've been working with Green Schools Project to survey students in primary and secondary schools as well to capture experiences of learning and sustainability at all levels of education.
We are facing a climate and ecological emergency which requires immediate action if we are to avoid catastrophic impacts from human induced climate change. To address this urgent need, the whole of society needs to come together and realise their roles as a individuals and as a collective. This is why we are calling on theG20 Education Ministers' meeting to make this a top priority.