With the impacts of climate change presenting greater challenges for future generations, some students and teachers in the UK believe that the school system should be doing more. Rather than wait for the UK government to incorporate climate change into primary and secondary school curriculums, some teachers are taking the issue into their own hands. 

Using the United Nation’s online Climate Change Teacher Academy, the UK is getting its first accredited teachers delivering practical climate education to classrooms. Once they train through the academy, they are prepared to deliver an easy-to-understand program that fully informs on the causes and consequences of climate change.

Following the student-led climate strikes in the UK and around the world, the demand for a comprehensive education that will have pupils better equipped to handle these challenges in the future is in high demand. Students at the Cheney school in Oxford set up a petition demanding that more attention be given to the subject, and it had achieved nearly 82,000 signatures. 

In an interview with The Guardian, UK Student Climate Network representative Noga Levy-Rapoport said the move was important to establish climate change and its associated impacts as an educational priority.

“It’s clear that our education system isn’t fit for purpose to equip us for the future we’re inheriting. As things stand our generation is being led down a dark tunnel toward increasingly severe climate breakdown and uncertainty. That’s why we’re calling for radical change to centre the climate crisis as an educational priority.”

 

Positive Action

• One of the best things individuals can do to help prevent the consequences of climate change is planting a tree. National Tree Day has just passed but any day can be a Tree Day with a little grit and grind!

 

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Positive Environment News has been compiled using publicly available information. Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes.