If anyone from government asked you what the key challenges & barriers are to consistent, high-quality Climate Education in England, and what the potential solutions and enablers might be, what would you say?
In what follows, Paul Vare (current NAEE Chair) and Bill Scott (previous NAEE Chair) put forward this response:
What are the key challenges/barriers to consistent, high-quality Climate Education in England?
The key problem is that no one knows what “high-quality Climate Education” is. The DfE offers no guidance as to its parameters and so schools and teachers are left with no alternative to making it up for themselves, inevitably being guided in this by external bodies (eg NGOs and learned societies) who all understandably bring a degree of institutional bias towards it. There are proposals. The most prominent is that from NAEE which has 5 elements:
- 1 What is climate?
- 2 What’s the evidence for global heating and the changing climate?
- 3 Looking ahead: what might happen if we carry on as we are?
- 4 Looking around: what are we already doing?
- 5 Looking ahead: what might (or should) we be doing?
These stretch from solid science – [1] & [2] – taught through science and geography, to examining IPCC scenarios – [3] – to explorations of possible future socio-economic actions that would require a whole-curriculum approach – [4] & [5]. If the DfE were to produce, through consultation, such guidance, it would be a start. There is a feeling “out there” that it has been reluctant to do so up to now because it sees the last element as being inherently controversial and hence risky. However, it is what young people say they want to experience, and it is already happening in the wider society.
What are the potential solutions and enablers?
DfE should produce non-statutory guidance, enable the identification of exemplar resource materials, require all pre-service courses to focus on this, and fund imaginative in-service professional development.