Abstract
This chapter introduces the field of climate change education, noting the paradox that in spite of many efforts at incorporating climate change in education policy and curriculum frameworks, and a diversity of practices in schools, there is little evidence that such efforts are contributing to adaptation, mitigation or reversal of climate change. The chapter reviews the role of international development organizations advocating for and developing frameworks in support of climate change education. This is followed by an analysis of ongoing efforts of climate change education.The chapter argues that more effective education for climate change at the primary and secondary education levels around the world requires context specific strategies that align the specific learning outcomes with the impacts of climate change in that context. Implementing those strategies requires the development of institutional capacity in schools that is aligned to the stage of institutional development of the school. The chapter explains how a multidisciplinary framework that accounts for the cultural, psychological, professional, institutional and political dimensions of the change process can support the development of collaboration and coherence in implementing those climate change education strategies. Those strategies need to also specify the particular populations that need to develop such competencies and the optimal means of delivery. The chapter also situates the literature on climate change education within the larger context of the literature on deeper learning, twenty first century skills and education system change, explaining how deeper learning in climate change education might influence attitudes and behaviors in ways that prevailing didactic approaches focused principally on the transmission of scientific knowledge do not.To develop such context specific climate change education strategies and to build the institutional capacity to implement them, the chapter makes the case for more intentional engagement of universities, in partnership with schools and non-formal education organizations. This would serve the dual role of providing support for schools in advancing climate change education, while also educating higher education students on climate change through problem based, participatory and contextually situated approaches.
Highlights
The Paradox of Climate Change and EducationAlong with many species on the planet, polar bears are experiencing the effects of climate change
Humans face risks to their habitat and survival resulting from climate change, such as the intensification of the wildfire season ravaging the West Coast in the United States, or more intense storms, droughts and floods, rising sea levels or increasing temperatures
Because climate change is largely the result of human-environmental interactions (IPCC 2018, p 53), schools can do more than help us understand these changes to our habitat, or help us adapt to those changes, they could help us slow down those changes and mitigate their impact, as we adopt practices that are more sustainable, and perhaps even revert them, as we invent technologies that transform the drivers of climate change
Summary
Along with many species on the planet, polar bears are experiencing the effects of climate change. As illustrated with the previous discussion of the complementarities between gender equity and climate change, given the multidimensional nature of the impacts of climate change underscored in recent reports of the IPCC, effective collective responses require addressing the systems that undergird such multidimensional processes This understanding has led to a growing realization that climate action is best undertaken in coordination in the context of poverty reduction and sustainability efforts, such as those reflected in the development compact adopted at the UN 2015 General Assembly: the Sustainable Development Goals. Climate change could conceivably be the defining issue of this century.” (Haas 2020, p. 192)
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