Education is an essential element of the global response to climate change. It helps people understand and address the impact of global warming, increases “climate literacy” among young people, encourages changes in their attitudes and behavior, and helps them adapt to climate change related trends.
Climate change presents a borderless and intergenerational phenomenon, with diverse and far-reaching impacts across the global community. Human activities are irreversibly changing the environment in which society exists, requiring collective, immediate and profound action on climate change
Environmental Education imparts knowledge about the current situation and future prospects of nature. It teaches people to explore all the problems related to environment, and engage in wise ways of preserving it
climate change poses a serious threat to efforts to reduce global poverty. According to the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change, the changing climate will have widespread effects on human life and ecosystems. It brings heat waves, flooding, droughts, intense tropical cyclones, rising sea levels, and damages biodiversity.
Addressing climate change and effective integration into education requires an understanding of the root causes and the social, economic and environmental relationships at play;
Education should be engaged as a mechanism to develop a workforce with the skills and knowledge to power green growth;
Vulnerable groups like children living in poverty in countries with weak governance and poor education systems are the hardest hit by climate change. The changing climate is making it harder for children to access education in a safe environment as disasters caused by climate change can damage or destroy schools. And the economic impacts of disasters reduce school enrollment, as children are kept out of school to help their families earn a living.
Climate change be addressed through the use of formal, non-formal and informal education targeting a wide cross-section of stakeholders, including as students, communities, industries and governments;
Climate change education should not be restricted by subject, but should be integrated across the curriculum, and requires emphasis on problem-solving and evidence-based thinking; and,
Pursuit of a collaborative approach to teacher training to foster acceptance of new methodologies and integration of climate education across the system.
Despite being threatened by the changing climate, education offers a valuable opportunity to combat climate change. It gives children and young people the knowledge and skills to make informed decisions about how to adapt individual lives and ecological, social or economic systems in a changing environment. Education plays a vital role in bringing about behavioral change, and schools can play an important part by becoming carbon neutral, energy efficient and reducing their own ecological footprint.
Some Schools in several countries have started educating students on climate change, but as it’s a relatively new addition to the curriculum, not all are doing so effectively. relatively new addition to the curriculum, not all are doing so effectively.
Young learners need academic reasoning and structure in order to contextualise climate change and have an outlet to ask questions that will help put their fear at ease.
Teaching kids about climate change is not solely to spur them on to take action and do their part for their environment, although that is, of course, one aspect of it.
It’s also to prepare them for the future as kids will be growing up in an era where they will likely be responsible for developing climate change solutions .
Schools that want to impart climate change education on the youth must also be sure that they are leading by example in terms of sustainability and being environmentally-friendly.
