in the classroom
Within the Australian curriculum , there ’ s cross curriculum priorities . The sustainability cross curriculum priority provides a great opportunity to engage in some of those other bigger questions .
I think students who will be going through their schooling that have this new version of the cross curriculum priority have some further opportunities provided through the curriculum to engage in action .
Is it enough , or do we need even more ? I think we need more . Even in the new curriculum , it ’ s still heavily within the science or the STEM subjects . But what we know is that climate change extends across all aspects of our life .
So what we ’ re looking for is how we can embed climate literacy throughout all of the materials that students engage with in schools – taking it from a topic to a lens through which we see the world .
How can teachers be better prepared to teach the topic ? That ’ s a really important question , and teachers do need to be supported in doing this work .
Teachers are so busy and have so many responsibilities and expectations on them already , it ’ s really not fair just to lump a whole new curriculum on them , or say ‘ you now have to teach climate change in everything ,’ without properly preparing them to do so .
What this can look like is professional development in schools and how schools and the professional development agencies that work with schools are supporting teachers .
We can also look to universities who are training the next generation of teachers or those that are coming back to receive more training , so that pre-service teachers have access to climate change curriculum and pedagogy in their degrees along with upskilling in what climate literacy looks like across all of the learning areas of a curriculum .
I think one of the things we probably don ’ t talk about enough is how we can better use the resources and vast amounts of knowledge , skills and energy that exist in our communities .
There is a lot of environmental and climate change work going on in our communities . In what ways can schools better access the knowledge that exists there ?
What I ’ d be advocating for is partnership models . So not just relying on teachers , but actually supporting teachers to work with community , taking students out into community to actually engage with the real world climate change and climate conversations that are happening .
Do you think teachers are confident about teaching climate change ? We ask this question in the research that we ’ ve been doing with teachers , and to be honest , the answer varies . Some teachers are confident and others really aren ’ t , and if the confidence isn ’ t there , they ’ re not introducing it into classrooms , or they ’ re quite hesitant to be speaking with authority about a topic that they don ’ t feel as though they have authority on .
I know I don ’ t like to talk about things that I don ’ t understand or don ’ t know about , so I think we can expect the same for teachers as well .
This is why we need to help teachers build their knowledge and have that confidence in the content of climate change , and know how to introduce it in ways that are safe so students can engage with it appropriately .
We know that climate change can be a really hard topic for young people to learn about . That ’ s actually one of the other reasons why teachers can be hesitant about introducing climate change into classrooms – there isn ’ t a great deal of positive material to talk about when you ’ re talking about the nuts and bolts of climate change and how our climate currently is in the world .
How can a partnership between community and school benefit students ? One of the projects we are running is Curious Climate Schools , and I ’ m talking about this as an example of what a community partnership can look like and how it can benefit students .
In this particular project we gave students the opportunity to submit their climate change questions . We received over 300 questions from students around Tasmania , and we committed to answering every one of those questions , or having each of those questions answered by an expert in the field .
This meant searching around Tasmania and Australia finding people who could answer these questions . The benefit there
Students want to go beyond the facts of climate change … to understand what they can be doing .
is community partnerships , and schools working with community and other organisations within community , can value add to the learning and opportunities that students have .
The next step in the project was to send a scientist or whoever was relevant , depending on the questions that students were submitting , into the schools to have a conversation and extend upon the answer that they ’ d provided to students .
Community can work alongside students and teachers to provide further information and that depth of knowledge and understanding that we can ’ t really expect teachers to have , or be able to offer students .
We already know that teachers are stretched and they have to know so much . So bring in the expertise if you like , and those people that are thinking and talking about this stuff all the time in their day job .
In that project you also talked with students . What were their thoughts on how climate change is taught at school ? That ’ s another piece of research that we ’ d really like to progress . But I think what we can look to is the amount of student activism that we ’ re seeing around the world and have been seeing for the last few years .
What we understand is that students want more to be done in schools and in the community , and by governments broadly . But the consensus is that we need more , and probably more action-oriented learning as well .
What we understand of those questions that students were submitting was that they want to go beyond the facts of climate change , and to understand what they can be doing and what it ’ s going to mean for their future careers : what opportunities are they going to have and how is climate change going to impact upon the sorts of jobs and lives that they ’ re going to have ? ■ educationreview . com . au | 15