Deakin University-led research is examining how climate change education can be taught in Australian science classrooms within traditional subjects such as biology, chemistry, physics, and earth and space science.
The move follows a shift in focus by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), of which Australia is a member, to prioritise socio-ecological competencies in school science programs to better equip young people for the world they will inherit.
Associate Professor Peta White of Deakin’s Centre for Regenerating Futures in the School of Education says changes to the national curriculum in 2022 put a greater emphasis on climate change, but it was still rarely mentioned in the science curriculum and infrequently taught in schools.
She says it’s important to embed climate education into more aspects of the Australian Curriculum because the mandated nature of the document would then ensure it is taught in the classroom.
“So, if it is included in the right place in the curriculum, then teachers must teach it,” she told EducationDaily.
“Therefore, textbooks must support, teacher education programs must prepare, and organisations must offer professional learning for current teachers to upskill … all to facilitate the teachers to be able to confidently and accurately teach climate change from their disciplines.”
Nurturing critical thinking
Although she acknowledges climate change education does currently appear in the curriculum, White says it’s “mostly in Science and Geography in year 10 … and most year 10 students do not take these subjects in school”.
“We need it better infused and at earlier year levels,” she says.
“The response that reflects the bigger picture is that: without educating our young people about how to manage misinformation, be critical thinkers, and to problem-solve, and how to understand the causes and reasons for human induced climate change … then we are not preparing them well for their futures and for being responsible citizens and future leaders.”
Preparing for an uncertain future
Her OECD-contracted report, conducted in partnership with colleagues from the Universities of Waikato, Florida and Stanford University, will inform the next Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) science test through three socio-ecological competencies. This test is due to be administered by the OECD to 15-year-olds in 2025.
It is anticipated that reforming the PISA Science Framework 2025 will galvanise OECD nations such as Australia to undertake greater curriculum policy reform so learning programmes that enhance students’ problem-solving skills and preparedness to tackle socio-ecological challenges are prioritised.
White says this would ensure the Australian curriculum performs well in international comparisons and that Australian students are better prepared for the challenges of an uncertain future.
“This is not about replacing physics with teaching students how to be a climate protestor – it is about creating a deeper learning within the current education model that equips students to be more empowered and effective climate actors,” she says.
“Students may learn aspects of climate change in subjects such as geography, technology, history, science, English and art, depending on their teachers’ professional preferences. But learning about climate change is one thing; knowing what to do about it is another.
“We know it is critical to develop the hands-on skills that support young people to learn how to practice environmental sustainability and how to change social systems to be more ecologically savvy. This is important because the challenges that might be the most essential for them to resolve in 10-20 years’ time might not be known today.”
Measuring competency is only part of the story
The PISA is administered internationally every three years to measure and compare students’ competency in reading, maths and science.
Strong performance is widely believed to be a good barometer of a nation’s future economic prospects, and past results revealed environmental knowledge, attitudes and actions are lacking and unevenly distributed across nations. This prompted the OECD to seek a new set of competencies to be tested in the Science focussed PISA 2025.
White says school learning activities could include students using science to identify and research local socio-ecological challenges and then enact informed political activism through lobbying and community advocacy.
This might range from letter writing to local government and MPs to developing school resource management policies and initiating community sustainability programs.
“Students could give presentations and create newsletter articles and posters on their community’s role in clean energy transitions, while in the process fostering traditional learning outcomes parents value from their education such as teamwork, creative and critical thinking, reading, writing and other key science concepts,” she says.
“Students could also work together to design and build a new biodiverse garden, for example, applying practices from science, mathematics, English, technology and the arts. This has the potential to make science wonderfully transdisciplinary, while supporting students to solve important and pressing socio-ecological challenges.”
Agency and action
For educators and families concerned about how to balance increased climate change education with the increasing anxiety many young people feel when they think about the consequences of a warming planet, White says “young people have anxieties because they are not often supported to know the complexity of the problems”.
“The complexity is important to attend to because this is what makes the problem so … tricky,” she told EducationDaily.
“I watched Damon Gameau’s new documentary yesterday – Future Council. He took eight young people to international organisations to ask why they were not changing their practices to reduce pollution. Watching them realise the enormity and complexity of the problems was interesting.
“The complexity generates big emotions … in me anyway! And so, we also need to learn how to manage these emotions.”
White wants educators to realise they can infuse climate change education into any subject – and almost at any time.
“Our curriculum mandates what must be taught – not how or in which context. So, teachers can choose how to frame the learning and in what way they will teach it (pedagogy),” she told EducationDaily.
“We must support our teachers to be professional educators. The current policy about prioritising explicit teaching leaves our teachers with fewer tools to call on in their teaching toolkit.
“Teachers need to feel supported by their school and community to teach the young people about the important – real-world complexities of our contemporary situation.
White says this can come from “school leadership giving not only permission but also support”.
“Many teachers will need resources and professional learning to consider how and what to teach,” she says.
“We do not want to teach ONLY climate impacts. We should be teaching how we got here and about the socio-ecological challenges we face… and that those who contribute the most are often impacted the least. This is social justice and eco justice.”
She believes the positive way forward is with “agency and action”
“Young people have lived with climate change their entire lives,” White told EducationDaily.
“This is not new and not unknown to them. They need to know WHY we are in this situation (how it happened) and what to do about it (how to take action).”
Empowering future job seekers
She points to what she describes as an “important project” that aims to develop sustainable climate change education strategy across Australia and calls on political leaders to take – and help motivate – proactive change.
Recent research showcasing 100 Jobs of the Future, she says, also highlight an essential reason today’s students need to have a deeper understanding of climate change.
“Education is the best way to generate change in our society,” White told EducationDaily.
“The other two change-making strategies are crisis (and we know how that feels since the pandemic) and mandate… and that is not easy either (think seatbelts). So, education is needed to generate the kind of change we need to see in our societies.
“Future job seekers will need to be skilled in a variety of ways – and they are likely to market their skills rather than settle into a career trajectory (as we had the luxury of doing). We need to promote skill development – diverse and highly refined. Schools can be great at doing this.”
White says “we also know that education is what can support communities who need to re-train due to industry closure – such as logging communities, potato growers, miners”.
“Re-training is not easy but is essential to support workers to move into new trades and develop new skills. It also generates a lot of employment in the process,” she told EducationDaily.
“As the fallout of socio-ecological challenges become more apparent, we need to consider if our educational system prepares young people to address problems related to how we generate energy, produce food, process waste, manage materials and design our communities,” White says.
“We know the magnitude of the climate crises can lead to eco-anxiety. But we also know that hope for the future is often strongly linked to a sense of agency or knowing how to act and what to do about it.”
