Habit

• This year, organizers of Earth Day are calling for widespread climate education as a critical step in the fight against climate change.
• A new report, released in time for global attention for Earth Day on April 22, highlights the impact of climate education on promoting behaviour change in the next generation.

How knowledge becomes ingrained

• Teachers have become increasingly concerned about best practices for supporting their charges as young people express anxiety about environmental futures.
• Similarly, Finnish researchers use biking as an analogy to describe the process by which knowledge becomes ingrained in people’s memory.
• The bike model advocates ways of learning that consider knowledge, identity, emotions and world views.
• More than half of the survey respondents were from Ontario (25 per cent) and Québec (29 per cent).

Challenges with climate education

• However, inclusion of climate education in formal school curricula has come with its own set of challenges.
• Educators in Ontario reported a lack of classroom resources as a barrier when integrating climate change education within the curriculum.
• The United Nations has declared climate education “a critical agent in addressing the issue of climate change” as climate education increases across different settings and for various age groups.

Educators finding ways

• More and more educators are taking steps to find ways to teach climate education in schools.
• As an instructor for several undergraduate-level courses, Olsen focuses on equipping budding educators with the skills and knowledge to incorporate climate education in their classrooms.

All aspects of curricula

• Embedding climate education into all aspects of curricula can take a variety of approaches in and outside of the classroom.
• Environmental education has been packaged in different forms, including broadening school curricula with inclusion in science, but also subjects including English, math and art.

Preety Sharma is a public health and development consultant. As a freelance journalist, she covers climate change, public health and nutrition. Ayeshah Haque is a Clinical Content Specialist at the Association for Ontario Midwives.