Schools and climate change

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Schools and climate change 13th December 2005
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Tide Teachers in development
education www.tidec.org
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Sustainable development is a learning process
learning as change rather than learning for
change - Stephen Sterling 2002
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Learning as a process is integral to sustainable
development, not just instrumental for it
sustainable development will not take place where
learning is not happening - Bill Scott 2002,
2003
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• Education for sustainable development is
• integral to the sustainability process
• about engaging with the challenge of
  sustainability, not about delivering messages.

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• This implies an action learning cycle
• thinking, doing, reflecting, evaluating
• which operates at a variety of scales
• and which makes connections including between
  local and global dimensions

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• This requires
• Space for learners including teachers to engage
  with the everyday complexity of the issues
• Opportunities for them to do so.

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• Schools
• delivering a prescribed national curriculum
• often in prescribed ways,
• characterised by inspection, testing,
  target-setting etc
• And yet ...

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There are particular opportunities within the
National Curriculum especially, but not only, in
Geography, Science, Design Technology,
Citizenship and PSHE a curriculum for which
sustainable development is an over-arching
purpose
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• Some initiatives offer particular scope for
  creativity
• Every Child Matters
• Excellence and Enjoyment
• The Secondary Strategy with its emphasis on key
  learning skills
• The Outdoor Education agenda.

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• And there is hope that the new ESD strategy
  supported by TeacherNet will offer legitimacy and
  support
• For whole school approaches
• For Continuing Professional Development
• For resourcing and practical support within and
  beyond the formal curriculum.

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Climate change - a particular problem - a
particular opportunity
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• A particular problem because
• It is characterised by uncertainty and complexity
  at every level
• It has no easy answers and risks being
  overwhelming
• There is no curriculum for climate change.

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• A particular opportunity because
• Its uncertainty and complexity make us have to
  think about how we teach
• The lack of easy answers means we cant fall back
  on didactic methods
• We all know it matters
• It offers cross-curricular and whole school
  opportunities.

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• In other words, learning about climate change
  requires us
• to learn together
• find our own solutions
• and be creative.
• This is ideal ESD.

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• It is also ideal for quality teaching and
  learning
• independent and co-operative working
• problem solving
• creative and connective thinking
• critical reflection ...
• gtgtgt in real life contexts

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• Tide
• A climate for change?
• 2002-5
• A need identified for creativity innovation
  about
• Educators own understanding of the issues
• Childrens informed engagement
• Schools as institutions meeting this challenge.

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• Our own understanding of the issues
• Focus study visit course to The Gambia
• One of 10 countries most vulnerable to climate
  change
• Investigating global climate change and related
  issues
• Visiting projects, agencies, communities
• Working alongside Gambian teachers Educators for
  sustainability
• Reflecting together on experiences, including our
  own learning and its implications for
  teaching
• Opportunity to accredit as PGCert Masters units
  at University of Worcester.

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• We have learned
• This is personal
• emotional, experiential, social, cognitive
• It is also about our communities and our global
  relationships, about values, justice and deeply
  held feelings and beliefs
• Intense experiences can lead to real and enduring
  change, to deep learning
• they can encourage us to re-evaluate our own
  underlying assumptions and feelings,
• and apply this to what we do.

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• The future
• Further courses building on this work
• Research into deep learning and global
  partnership
• New ways to share these experiences.

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Childrens informed engagement FocusClimate
change, local global An enquiry approach based
on 4 key questions 1. What is climate
change? 2. Why does is matter? 3. What can we do
about it? 4. What have we learned and how?
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• Climate change, local global
• 5 creative groups in West Midlands over 100
  teachers involved in creative process
• Focus on KS2 and 3
• As much about enquiry learning as about climate
  change drawing on Blooms taxonomy
• Publication and conference Autumn 2005 as
  starting point for further creativity

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• We have learned
• That teaching about a complex issue raises
  complex issues about pedagogy
• That putting learners in charge of their
  learning, as part of a process, may lead to more
  sustained change than transmitting green
  messages
• That such change partly arises from informed
  citizenship and personal ownership of action, and
  can be responsive to new understandings.

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No-one has the answers yet. Therefore, what the
children come up with is very important -
Shropshire teacher
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• The future
• Thinking through climate change project as
  contribution to WMnets
• climate change initiative
• Http//climatechange.wmnet.org.uk
• Course on evaluating enquiry learning
• Events and new projects in Shropshire,
  Worcestershire
• The Giants Embrace Big Brum TIE
• Other new work?

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• Schools as institutions
• Focus Pilot work on sustainable schools
• Making creative use of whats already there
• eg Eco Schools, WWF Pathways,
• Be Smart with Water, Thinkleadership
• Linked to partnership with Capetown Headteachers
• Responding to new initiatives
• especially at DfES.

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• The future
• Sharing of work and further development of ideas
  at day course
• 7th March 2006
• Further work needed, including the development of
  whole school and
• CPD packages.

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• Climate change
• the approaching elephant?
• How do we create a climate for change ...
• for creative engagement with this pressing issue
  in a culture of mutual learning?
• How do we build capacity for quality curriculum
  and professional development within the education
  system?
• Where do schools institutional responsibilities
  fit into this picture?

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• The UNESCO Decade
• Climate change
• the global issue of our time?
• What opportunities might there be for
  international sharing between teachers, learners
  pooling of ideas, exchanging of perspectives?
• How can the Decade help profile/accelerate what
  is happening ...
• and encourage support and resourcing for it?
• How can we best draw on UNESCOs repository of
  scientific and cultural expertise?

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Climate change A challenge so far-reaching in
its impact and irreversible in its destructive
power that it alters radically human
existence - Tony Blair, September 2004 The
elephant is approaching