JOINT STATEMENT ON CLIMATE-THEMED LEARNING
COP27 CAMPAIGN
The climate crisis is the most significant challenge for humanity and the planet we depend upon. Children and young people stand to lose the most if we fail to address it. With little time left to change direction and keep the global temperature rise below +1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, addressing climate change and the injustices associated with it is more essential than ever. Education has a major role to play in helping to address the climate crisis, enabling learners to understand the science, the challenges we face, and to develop the potential to think critically and identify solutions to contribute to a more sustainable world and a better future for all.
To support education staff, the NEU, ASCL, UCU, NUS, SOS-UK and Teach the Future are promoting a Climate Learning Month during November 2022 in alignment with COP27 [1], taking place November 2022, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The aim is to support educators across schools, colleges, universities and other education providers including early years and adult education, to integrate activities and themes related to understanding the climate and ecological crisis during November. To support educators, a set of downloadable climate and sustainability teaching resources and CPD courses have been developed. The focus of the month is supporting educators to work with students, children and young people to help them understand the urgency of the crisis and how they can help bring about the changes needed for a sustainable future.
Young people are understandably extremely concerned about the climate crisis. In this context, the refusal of the DfE to consider reviewing the curriculum in England, to make it more relevant to current challenges is deeply frustrating. Educators have a key role to play in teaching about the scale and urgency of the climate crisis and the measures needed to address it. To this end, all governments within the UK must properly resource climate change education and do so as a matter of priority.
Regarding the contribution of this collaboration to support education staff Climate Learning Month will help to foster ideas as to how climate change education may be delivered and how young people and students can be engaged in this crucial issue in an age-appropriate way. This is very much a starting point for what we hope will lead to longer term embedding of climate and sustainability across curricula.
For further information about the campaign or CPD courses please contact:
ASCL: tellus@ascl.org.uk
NEU: climatechange@neu.org.uk and cpd@neu.org.uk
SOS-UK: hello@sos-uk.org
Teach the Future: hello@teachthefuture.uk
UCU: environment@ucu.org.uk
[1] The COP27 event is a global United Nations summit about climate change and how countries are planning to tackle it. It will take place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, between 6 and 18 November 2022.