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Make time for your learners to talk about climate change. Give them the opportunity to voice their concerns. Acknowledge their worries – they are real.

By Claire Seeley, educational consultant

Climate change is the most significant challenge facing humanity, both now and in the future. It’s also a significant worry for young people.

According to a new survey from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, over half (57%) of child and adolescent psychiatrists reported that they are working with children and young people distressed about the climate crisis and the state of the environment.

Known as eco-anxiety, many youngsters express deep worries about the health and wellbeing of their planet.

As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure it is woven into our curriculum, not as a one-off lesson on global warming, but as a core part of our curriculum.

Our learners need to understand what causes climate change, what the effects of climate change are and what it will take to tackle it.

So how do we begin to teach about climate change in a way that ensures that we are both accurate about the issue but sensitive and supportive to our learners?

Here are my six top tips:

1. Get to grips with climate change

There is lots of terminology associated with discussing climate change. So, it’s important to break down those ideas and spend time teaching the key concepts. Here are a few of the important ideas:

• What is climate?

Climate is the general weather in one place over a long period of time. This KS2 Bitesize article explains weather and climate in simple terms.

• What is the greenhouse effect?

The greenhouse effect is a process that occurs when gases in the Earth's atmosphere trap the Sun's heat.

However, human activities such as burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide and methane) can cause the Earth's atmosphere to trap more and more heat.

This causes the Earth to warm up, which leads to climate change.

• What is climate change?

Climate change is a long-term rise in temperatures and change in weather patterns. Climate change is causing extreme weather and natural disasters such as flooding, drought, storms and famine.

Climate change is currently happening more rapidly than at any other time in Earth’s history. This ����ý News guide outlines what climate change is.

• What is global warming?

Global warming is the process of our planet heating up.

• What causes the sea levels to rise?

As temperatures increase, glaciers and ice sheets melt and more water in the oceans makes sea levels higher. In addition, water expands as it gets warmer which takes up more room in our oceans – making sea levels rise.

Rapidly rising sea levels is another important measure of how fast our planet is changing.

• What causes habitat loss and species extinction?

Habitat loss is when a habitat is no longer able to support the plants, animals, or other organisms that live in it.

Habitat loss is identified as a main threat to 85% of all species described in the IUCN’s (International Union for the Conservation for Nature) red list, which lists endangered or threatened species. Human behaviour causes habitat loss and climate change.

2. Show children the link between human activity and climate change

There is a wealth of incontrovertible evidence for climate change available.

Graphs show the trend of rising average global temperatures over recent years. However, this is only half of the story. By showing learners satellite images, you can demonstrate how the world has changed.

The Bitesize: The Regenerators Climate Change Live Lesson for primary schools includes an activity that challenges children to spot changes in satellite images.

There are also many free STEM resources online, such as the Earth Observation Detective resources, which use early astronaut photographs and satellite images to illustrate what features on the Earth look like from space. These enable learners to measure the growth of a city and the shrinking of a glacier.

During lockdown, we saw a powerful demonstration of the direct correlation between our human activity and climate change. We saw a brief, momentary, glimpse that if humanity takes its foot off the gas, the planet can begin to recover.

According to the International Energy Agency, average activity on the world's roads fell by almost 50% compared with 2019. This resulted in a temporary improvement in air quality.

Whilst sadly this tiny tentative improvement in air quality is now all but lost, it shows that if humanity decides to take positive action, there is hope.

3. Open up dialogue

Make time for your learners to talk about climate change. Give them the opportunity to voice their concerns. Acknowledge their worries – they are real.

Make regular time to learn and talk about climate change as part of your curriculum, not just as a one-off. So much of the primary curriculum naturally links to the environment: if it becomes a core theme then there are plenty of opportunities to talk.

Discussion allows learners to develop different types of thinking skills such as critical thinking – to think around a problem – and creative thinking – to create innovative solutions to the problem.

For example, if you are learning about materials, then a natural link is recycling. To encourage critical thinking, ask your learners to consider the items they throw away.

Discuss whether, if they have finished using something, is that its final end or could someone else use it?

Ask them to talk about recycling and how materials can be reused.

Encourage them to think about what stops people from recycling.

Then your learners might creatively imagine they can help people to recycle their rubbish. How could they educate and support people to sort their rubbish and store it ready for recycling?

4. Get active

Support your learners to think about positive ways they could help tackle climate change.

Remind them that it is everyone’s responsibility: this burden cannot and should not rest solely on the shoulders of our young people.

However, taking positive action will help them to feel more in control and give them hope. Small changes can and do make a big difference.

Find resources and ideas through Bitesize: The Regenerators, an ambitious new initiative that will educate and inspire children, young people and families to take simple steps to build a greener future.

Participating in environmental projects for schools such as Eco Schools, Woodland Trust Green Tree or Wildlife Trust Wild Schools awards can all give a useful structure for action.

Understanding and working to improve their locality helps our learners to develop their understanding of the wider world.

Make regular time to learn and talk about climate change as part of your curriculum, not just as a one off.

5. Connect with nature

Research has consistently shown that there are positive wellbeing outcomes from a close connection to nature.

Our relationship with nature – how much we notice, think about and appreciate our natural surroundings – is vital for keeping us emotionally, psychologically and physically healthy.

Ensure that your learners have lots of opportunities to spend periods of quality time outside.

Support them to really engage with the natural world by:

• sitting quietly, using all of their senses to actively take in the world around them
• talking with them about how being in the natural world makes them feel
• asking them to comment on something they find beautiful
• encouraging them to respond to the natural world by being creative through art, poetry, dance or music
• finding ways to do something positive to make a space for nature in your school grounds.

6. Build the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into your curriculum

The Sustainable Development Goals are a set of ambitious goals aimed at making the world a better place.

The goals can by woven through the curriculum, giving our learners a more global dimension to their curriculum.

Many teachers feel that the curriculum is already overstuffed with content. However, look closely and you will see that the Sustainable Development Goals build on concepts and ideas already within the curriculum.

Building the SDGs into your curriculum can help learners to see the links between different subjects and key ideas. Linking learning to SDGs allows them to see how those ideas apply to real world contexts.

This ����ý Bitesize GCSE guide gives a brief overview of the Sustainable Development Goals. There are lots of further resources out there which will help teachers to weave it through their curricula.

Many of us teachers lack confidence when talking about climate change.

It seems enormous and we worry about getting it wrong.

However, it is so important that educators engage with climate change – it affects us all.

We must ensure that our learners understand the climate crisis, teaching them that they have the power to shape the future.

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