The state of climate change education – reflections from a selection of studies around the world

In the guest editorial of Volume 24 Issue 3 of the International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, Chang argued that:

approach of teaching climate change would need to balance between developing learners who can critically engage new information about the phenomena as well as being empathic individuals who are committed to take action to make their living environment a better one. (Chang, 2015, p. 183)

The challenge put forward was for more research on climate change education (CCE) that will impact practice. At about the same time, the two guest editors have noticed that there has been a steady growth in the number of works on teaching and learning climate change as presented at conferences and published in IRGEE. Through a network of educators working on sustainability issues and the Southeast Asian Geography Association, the guest editors contacted several scholars working on CCE to put together this special issue. The purpose of this body of work is to document these efforts as well as to provide an overview of the scope of research done so that it can inform other researchers in their work.

CCE must necessarily provide children with the capability of engaging in climate change discourse, critically and accurately. It is easy to dismiss its relevance to learning when the discourse on climate change is characterized by the concepts of complexity and uncertainty. Indeed, more nations are engaging schools to teach the issue of recent climate changes, specifically global warming, to equip learners with functional knowledge on how to mitigate and adapt to anticipated warmer global conditions (Gardiner, 2014). Education for mitigation and adaptation is espoused as the key strategy to building climate literacy (Kagawa & Selby, 2012; UNESCO & UNEP, 2011). Students who are unable to engage climate change discourse, whether in critically debating issues or in taking action for conservation, will likely lose out in a climate changing world.

This issue comprises six research articles that report on both students and teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, as well as teaching approaches that impact students’ knowledge and motivation. Three studies focused on students’ awareness, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors towards climate change. Using different measures and indicators, we could glean parallels across contexts. The Finland paper shows that although students may view climate change to be relevant to their lives, their own willingness to act was lacking. The authors also found that the students’ interest in environmental issues, their perceived relevance of the mitigation strategies, and how they view the design of their climate change learning experience have positive impact on students’ willingness to act. Similarly, Hong Kong students are as concerned about climate change. However, the authors reported that the students practice environmental-friendly behaviors such as recycling and reducing energy use. The article concludes that Hong Kong secondary students demonstrated a high level of awareness of, and positive attitudes towards climate change issues, when compared to participants in other parts of the world. In considering the conclusion in the Finnish paper that the way the learning activity was designed will have a very an effect on how students will act about climate change, learning design becomes important if we want to see students learn and take action for climate change. Indeed, the Malaysian study showed that the way the learning activity is designed does affect the students’ knowledge and motivation. Using experiential learning in Biology classes, the authors successfully developed students’ awareness about climate change and consequently encouraged students’ learning and critical thinking about the issue. Although the topic was taught in non-Geography class, the principle of how experiential learning helped students develop knowledge about climate change was based on the premise that when students are engaged in active experimentation, they are provided with a context to explore and make sense of the concrete real life experiences.

The papers from South Africa and Turkey investigated pre-service teachers’ attributes towards climate change. The South African paper showed that gender, age, teaching experience, and teaching grade influenced the teachers’ literacy about climate change science, while qualification and specialization did not. The Turkish paper, on the other hand, indicated that while majority of the teachers were certain that climate change is happening, there were also indicators of uncertainties in such belief. These studies are important as they help us understand where future teachers are at, and help us understand how teacher education can be designed to support teachers in CCE.

The comparative analysis of Singapore and Philippine in-service teachers shed light on how the topic is taught in very different ways. Singapore approaches CCE through a single subject discipline of Geography and the Philippines engages the issue from an interdisciplinary social studies perspective. While the former does not have the advantage of engaging such a complex socio-scientific issue form interdisciplinary lenses, the latter is also subjected to constraints of existing school structures that do not support interdisciplinary work. Nevertheless, the study adeptly illustrated the relationship between the teachers, students, and the subject matter to be taught. This brings us to a bigger question of how do these articles fit within the discourse on CCE.

In this special issue, there is a deliberate attempt to organize the papers according to the students’ attributes and knowledge, pedagogical approaches, and teachers’ attribute and knowledge. This brings to mind Lambert and Hopkin's (2014) idea of curriculum making in that the curriculum is considered to be a product of the dynamic interaction between three domains: the student, the way the subject is taught, and the broader social purposes of education. While the Hong Kong and Finnish papers describe the attributes of the student, the Malaysian paper describes the way the subject matter is taught. Further, the way the subject matter is taught is also influenced by teacher knowledge and attitudes as discussed in the Turkish and South African papers. Finally, the Singapore and Philippine comparison raises the question of the nature of CCE within the broader social purposes of education.

When the guest editors sent out the first call for submission to the special issue, we had asked for research that shows in-country experience of CCE, shown from the perspectives of local researchers. The net was cast wide, inviting not only researchers in geography and environmental education, but also those in the natural and social sciences. For indeed, climate change is an trans-disciplinary field whose essence, possibilities, and threats could only be fully grasp when the different silos of knowledge agree to exchange ideas. The way that the papers have provided insights on the state of CCE across different education systems is encouraging. While we are far from developing an exhaustive review of works on CCE, this special issue provides a sampler of key areas that we now have to work on. Indeed, the fundamental goal of any curriculum is to develop an educational experience that will enable the student to succeed in society (Henderson, 2015). Given the complexities and uncertainties of a climate changing world, children who are unable to engage climate change issues will likely miss the benefits of CCE. Hence, it is the geography and environment educators’ job to continue working on research that will impact the way the topic is taught and learned, with a view to helping children succeed in a climate changing world.