{"id":8043,"date":"2022-01-30T10:20:03","date_gmt":"2022-01-30T10:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8043"},"modified":"2022-01-30T10:20:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T10:20:03","slug":"climate-education-research-a-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2022\/01\/30\/climate-education-research-a-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Education Research \u2013 a response"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made the following response at a webinar last week where the latest research c\/o Teacher Tap from\u00a0Teach the Future<\/em>\u00a0and SOS-UK was presented. \u00a0You'll be able to find the research here<\/a> in a few days.<\/p>\n

\"Thanks for the invitation to comment on the research.\u00a0 I want to say something about two aspects of the data.\u00a0 Firstly a subject by subject comparison, and then what teachers are saying about improving learning opportunities for students.<\/p>\n

When I first saw these data they made immediate sense to me.\u00a0 While I couldn\u2019t have predicted the actual numbers with great precision, I could say how they\u2019d likely compare with each other.\u00a0 For example,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that geography is the subject area that has the highest figures for meaningful coverage of climate change.\u00a0 Or that science and geography come out as the subjects that feature all three issues most highly.\u00a0 Or that the challenges facing humanity are more covered in geography than in science.\u00a0 Or that religious studies featured strongly.\u00a0 Or that maths is positioned as lowly as it is.\u00a0 Given the nature of the secondary curriculum, its development over time, and the way that teachers are professionally supported to do their difficult jobs, that\u2019s what I\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also expect that climate change featured more strongly in what schools do than the ecological crisis.\u00a0 And this is what we consistently find in the research.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019d not foreseen (because I\u2019d not thought enough about it) was that the challenges facing humanity would feature more strongly than the ecological crisis in so many subjects.\u00a0 In fact, in all of them, except science.\u00a0 Despite its obvious relevance, however, it\u2019s mostly at a low level.\u00a0 I\u2019ll come back to this.<\/p>\n

However, some of these numbers are really quite low. \u00a0Look at science and climate change where only 67% of teachers saying that it is covered in a meaningful and relevant way.\u00a0 And, although geography comes in at 92%, given that it is optional at Key Stage 4, fewer students than might be expected will be learning about it in any depth.<\/p>\n

And fewer than 50% of science teachers are saying that teaching about the ecological crisis is embedded in a meaningful and relevant way.\u00a0 There are just under 3.5 million students in secondary schools across England, and it can only be shocking that 1.7 million of them are not learning about this effectively.<\/p>\n

Turning now to what we might do, I welcome that so few teachers are calling for Ofsted or the exam boards to pressurise schools into compliance.\u00a0 I may be old fashioned but I have always thought that young people should learn about these topics because they are important to society and to them.\u00a0 I also noted that there was not much call for \u201cfurther evidence\u201d on the benefits of including these issues in the curriculum.\u00a0 That\u2019s also reassuring.<\/p>\n

When it comes to what teachers are calling for, two points stand out: [i] a call for time to develop curricula and resources, and [ii] a call for more collaboration across subjects.\u00a0 This is particularly the case for climate change, with little difference seen across subjects. \u00a0I\u2019ll focus on the second of these.<\/p>\n

In terms of teaching about climate change, NAEE has argued that there needs to be a focus on four largely sequential aspects.\u00a0 These are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What is climate?<\/li>\n
  2. What\u2019s the evidence for global heating and the changing climate?<\/li>\n
  3. Looking ahead: what might happen?<\/li>\n
  4. Looking ahead: what can we do?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What is climate<\/em> is the easy bit and it goes on in schools already.\u00a0 It\u2019s part of the national curriculum and uncontroversial.\u00a0 There is lots of teacher experience and expertise, and resources galore.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s the evidence<\/em> is more complex and challenging.\u00a0 There is less experience and expertise in relation to teaching this, and it\u2019s not all mandated by the national curriculum.\u00a0 There are good resources though, and it\u2019s now largely uncontroversial.\u00a0 Both these are the province of geography and science teaching.<\/p>\n

    What might happen<\/em> is even more complex in both its nature, and in terms of how to help students learn.\u00a0 It\u2019s a difficult mix of clear science and scenario modelling \u2013 some of which set out awful consequences for us all.\u00a0 There is a risk of slipping into gloom-mongering.\u00a0 It\u2019s not in the national curiculum at all.<\/p>\n

    What can we do<\/em> brings a new level of difficulty, because it\u2019s inherently political, and values are in play.\u00a0 Exploring this carries risk for a school but it\u2019s what groups of young people say they want \u2013 quite rightly so in my view.<\/p>\n

    But happily, this is what the DfE is now seems to be saying should happen.\u00a0 As you know, DfE has written a draft sustainability and climate change education strategy<\/a> for education and children\u2019s services systems which it\u2019s now consulting on.\u00a0 Part of this is a vision that the UK will be the<\/em> world-leading education sector in sustainability and climate change by 2030.\u00a0 The government has also now published the UK\u2019s Third Climate Change Risk Assessment<\/a>.\u00a0 On the DfE website announcing this, the Minister for the School System, Baroness Barran wrote this:<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe\u2019re \u2026 \u00a0providing educational opportunities for young people to learn about the impacts of climate change, including how to adapt and tackle the issues we face.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The minister\u2019s \u201chow to adapt and tackle the issues<\/em>\u201d maps exactly onto NAEE\u2019s 4th<\/sup> point \u2013 \u201cwhat can we do<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 A key issue here is that a consideration of \u201cwhat can we do<\/em>\u201d as a society to \u201cadapt and tackle<\/em> the issues<\/em>\u201d is that it obviously cannot just be taught within any one school subject.\u00a0 This is because we\u2019re dealing with whole-society issues: from energy to ethics, from land use to justice, from health to housing.\u00a0 It obviously needs teacher collaboration across subjects if students are to learn effectively.<\/p>\n

    The research seems to show that teachers understand this which leads me to wonder whether we might be in the happy position where students, teachers and DfE ministers all seem to agree.\"<\/p>\n

    .................................................................................<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I made the following response at a webinar last week where the latest research c\/o Teacher Tap from\u00a0Teach the Future\u00a0and SOS-UK was presented. \u00a0You'll be able to find the research here in a few days. \"Thanks for the invitation to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}