Please miss, can you teach us about climate change?
Climate change is the most critical issue of the moment, and has been described by our prime minister as her generation's "nuclear-free moment". Its impacts, regardless of your views on it, are only going to get greater. Yet it is not part of our school curriculum. Some experts say that has to change. It is such an existential threat that not to make it a requirement to teach children about climate change is doing them a great disservice, they say. One of those is Victoria University associate professor Jenny Ritchie. She's been calling for climate change to be part of the curriculum for two years. READ MORE: * Kids. don't let climate grief stop you looking forward to the future * Auckland Council declares climate change emergency * Climate change education missing in New Zealand curriculum * Quick! Save the planet: We must confront climate change Ritchie says teachers have the ability to teach the curriculum, which was last revised in 2007, in a non-prescriptive manner, essentially meaning it is up to them to teach topics that fit into the various knowledge domains in a manner they see fit. The "inquiry model" of teaching used in the New Zealand curriculum which encourages children to be self-directed and often allows them to choose a focus is well suited to the teaching of subjects like climate change, and many teachers are already doing just that. "It does vary and the problem is we don't know how many children are not being taught about climate change. My gut-feeling is that there is not enough happening in schools," Ritchie says. While there will undoubtedly be arguments for other subjects to be added to the curriculum, none compares with climate change. "Critics who pushed for other subjects would not be appreciating the urgency and the huge transition we need to make globally to alleviate the pending doom of climate change. It would be slightly naive to argue that other subjects should take priority," she says. Having said that, it wouldn't be the first time such a measure had been taken. "There have been international and national crises that required a re-education of our children. Not in our lifetimes, but certainly in wartime we would have been teaching children about safety, for example." Ritchie points to the huge turnout for the School Strikes 4 Climate Change event last month as clear evidence of the groundswell of feeling about the subject. "It was clear from the conversations I had with many of these kids that they had educated themselves on the topic, and the terminology. They were very articulate. We should never underestimate children as advocates for the climate." Ritchie is a big fan of Enviroschools, which is in about a third of all schools, and promotes sustainability and ecological transformation, but it is a voluntary project that requires schools make a whole-of-school commitment and to obtain funding. "We just have to make it part of the curriculum. Climate action is one of the Untied Nations' sustainable development goals for 2030. Every country in the world is having to transition to enable life to carry on in the way we would like it to. It's critical that we teach our children about this." The New Zealand curriculum sets the direction for teaching and learning in English-medium schools. But it is a framework, rather than a detailed plan. This means that, while every school curriculum must be clearly aligned with the intent of the document, schools have considerable flexibility when determining the detail. In doing this, they can draw on a wide range of ideas, resources, and models. In years 1-10, schools are required to provide teaching and learning in English, the arts, health and physical education, mathematics and statistics, science, the social sciences, and technology. Dr Chris Eames, a senior lecturer at Waikato University's Science Education Research Centre, says there is a "moral imperative to help our children understand and learn to address climate change" and it needs to be explicitly mentioned in that list. "Anything other than that is actually creating a massive disservice to them and their future. It's clear that climate change will have significant impacts on their lives. "To put our children in a position where we're not preparing them and I don't mean just the knowledge, but also the decision-making they'll have to do to firstly mitigate the impacts of climate change and secondly, if they have to (and they probably will) to adapt to it. "It's in this 'action taking' where education has been sadly lacking. They need to be able to know what they need to do. "It was clear at the climate change strike that these children desperately want to know what they can do. They're asking us to help them help themselves, and if we're not doing that as educators we're really failing them, I think." Eames, who wrote a paper on climate change education in 2017, says the current curriculum came out when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was just beginning to suggest there was a significant likelihood that humans were contributing to climate change. "So it's probably not surprising that there wasn't a lot in the curriculum specifically about climate change. "Has it changed since I wrote my paper? No, because the curriculum hasn't changed. There's a sense that, under the current government, it's possible that some change may occur, but we have yet to see any tangible move in that direction. "Although the government has recently changed the curriculum effectively by bringing in a new strand of the technology curriculum called digital technology, there hasn't been anything like that remotely associated with climate change, and no suggestion that would even be possible." Because it is not mentioned explicitly in the curriculum, it is understandable that schools may not put a lot of resources towards it "because they're not required to by the policy document that guides them", Eames says. "There are teachers doing great work in classrooms around climate change, but it is a bit hit and miss, as it often is with these situations. You've got very passionate teachers who are aware of the issue and are working with their students to help them understand, but there are a whole lot of others who aren't. "The question then is, are the students who are being taught about it capable of being leaders in the fight to address climate change when the others are not being educated and may find it hard to know who to listen to and who to follow." Eames says climate change education would give children skills to address immediately what they and their families can do and, most importantly, would give them some hope. "What's been shown time and again in the literature is that, if we overwhelm our children with doom and gloom messages about the future without giving them hope, then it will be disempowering." Alwyn Poole is academic adviser of the Villa Education Trust, which runs three schools in Auckland. He says New Zealand's influence on the global climate is tiny compared with the likes of China and India. "To me it doesn't make up a subject. It's a genuine part of a science course, or inquiry learning, or part of a social studies course. "There are those that argue it should be a standalone subject, but I'd argue really strongly that every school should be teaching Maori or New Zealand history as a standalone subject. You can get right through secondary education without having to read the Treaty of Waitangi. "Adults are really good at dumping the problems of the world on young people and telling them they need to solve the problems. You've got to let kids grow up too." Education Ministry deputy secretary early learning and student achievement Ellen MacGregor-Reid says that, while climate change is not specified in the curriculum, sustainability is already an integral part of it. "Through its vision, principles, values, key competencies and learning areas, the [curriculum] not only provides significant scope for the teaching and learning about climate change, but also sets strong expectations for these opportunities. "While we do not set out compulsory lesson plans that all schools must follow, we expect schools and kura to teach about topics related to sustainability, climate change being one of them. "We expect that significant issues, such as climate change, are explored with emphasis on problem-solving to develop informed and active citizens." The ministry is developing a global citizenship and sustainability curriculum resource called Putatara: A Call to Action, which will be available from term 3 this year. MacGregor-Reid points to a number of resources the ministry has for schools and teachers on environmental education for sustainability, including guidelines and NCEA achievement standards, and to the success of the Enviroschools programme, which is in 1100 schools and early learning centres. "We are constantly and actively revising and developing resources to support curriculum design and delivery. Recently these have increasingly been focused on climate change as a topic." Climate Change Minister James Shaw says students have demonstrated their commitment and concern about climate change in the recent "strikes". "That will be noticed by schools and school boards, which have the responsibility, under New Zealand's curriculum system, to ensure schools' teaching programmes explore significant issues." He says schools are applying teaching time to climate change and environmental sustainability. "I also understand the Ministry of Education is developing a curriculum resource for students to study global citizenship and sustainability, which will provide opportunities to explore issues such as climate change, and how people can become agents for change. "It makes sense to see education about climate change as part of an interlinking range of curriculum areas, just as climate change interlinks with almost every aspect of our daily lives."