Climate Change in Chile’s School Science Curriculum

Abstract

Climate change is considered one of the greatest threats to human and natural ecosystems. In the search of options for action from science education, this paper aims to analyze the Chilean science curriculum to understand and act upon the socio-environmental climate change emergency. We developed a content analysis of curriculum documents, focusing on climate change, curriculum integration, and climate action. We explored 15 Chilean science and general curriculum documents for nine different school subjects. By understanding curriculum documents as a critical aspect to promote an educational response to climate change, we evidence that, even though only 5% of all learning goals are explicitly connected to climate change, there are opportunities to promote an integrated curriculum on climate change. Activities in the Chilean curriculum regarding climate change are mainly linked to concepts such as sustainability and biodiversity, and climate action from a critical approach of scientific literacy is primarily promoted in the last two years of schooling. This unbalanced science curriculum throughout all levels might be producing potential tensions in pedagogical practices about climate change education.