Education Today Education Today Magazine
This July we all felt the effects of climate change as temperatures in the UK reached a new record of 40.3°C. These shocking highs may be here to stay as, according to the Met Office, we are ten times more likely to see temperatures over 40°C in the current climate than under one unaffected by human activity.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering it is their future at stake, the state of the planet is something children are extremely engaged with. A report for VotesforSchools and UNICEF UK on the eve of COP26 found that 95% are concerned about climate change, 89% don’t feel enough is being done, and 81% don’t feel listened to. A poll by BBC Newsround found that one in five are so worried that it actually gives them nightmares. The severity of how affected children feel highlights the vital importance of educating them about the world that they have inherited, so that they can feel empowered to try to change things for the better.
“Children have to live with the mistakes of adults, their wrongs and opinions,” said one fourteen-year-old from UNICEF UK’s research. “But as we grow-up we as a generation understand what is going on with the world and should have a valid say.” A large majority of teachers share their pupils’ concerns, but 70% don’t feel they have received adequate training to teach about it, and 41% said it was rarely or never mentioned in their schools. However, 92% of teachers, according to a Teach the Future poll, share their students’ worries about climate change and want to place more emphasis on it in school.
EVERFI offers two free courses to fill this gap and provide students with the knowledge they clearly crave, as well as also arming teachers with the tools and guidance they need to teach this critical and ever-present topic. EVERFI is passionate about tackling the ‘missing layer of learning’ of vital skills young people need to acquire in order to have a fulfilling future, which too often fall outside of the curriculum. The two courses, Sustainability Foundations and Plants, Animals, and Our World, are easily accessible online and completely free. They help students aged eleven to fourteen make environmental choices that are not only good for them here in the UK, but also on a global scale. They will help them think critically about the world they live in and consider their responsibilities to Earth’s limited resources.
What will they learn?
Sustainability Foundations teaches students how our world is made up on interconnected systems, which are dependent on each other to stay healthy. The course helps them understand how human health, climate change, global resource constraints, and animal welfare are all interconnected. It is split into four easy to follow lessons:
- Sustaining Global Resources, which focuses on learning about the natural limits of resources, and how to make more sustainable choices.
- Protecting Healthy Biodiversity, where students study the role humans play in the natural world.
- Positively Impacting Climate Change, where students undertake an exercise to come up with solutions to restoring and regenerating a virtual place, and understand the natural balance of the planet.
- Healthy Life, which explores the complexity of needs required to keep human life healthy, and the importance of caring for shared resources.
Once pupils have studied these foundations, this learning can be built on with Plants, Animals and Our World. This course gives students many opportunities to practise making sustainable choices, reinforcing the concept that they have agency to create sustainable change. Together, these courses meet the incredible demand from young people for knowledge about our world, enabling them to take action.
Environmental education has also been shown to have benefits beyond just understanding the world we live in and how to protect it. Research from Stanford University revealed that it can also improve academic performance, enhance critical thinking skills, and develop personal growth and life-building skills, including confidence, autonomy, and leadership. And as the environment is something children are already so invested in, it is an easy topic to get them engaged with and boost class participation, using EVERFI’s varied and interesting resources.
Jemma Best, Head of Products & Programmes at EVERFI, said: “Educating the next generation about the environment has never been more important to our future, and it’s also something that young people are very keen to learn about. Our completely free courses provide teachers with all the tools they need to feel confident teaching about our world and how we can live sustainably in it, as well as engaging activities to get the whole class involved in.”
The need for more environmental education is clear, with demand from both students and teachers. Comprehensive, free courses like EVERFI’s fill this gap, helping teachers pass on this vital knowledge in an easy, engaging way, to empower the next generation to take action.
Schools can register to access EVERFI’s free platform and get access to the sustainability courses – and many others – here:
