Education plays a very important part in addressing the issue of climate change. It can encourage people to change their attitudes and behavior; it also helps them to make informed decisions. It is generally agreed that the impact of climate change will fall hardest on today’s young people. The question is how we can best prepare them for the future. GFI believes that young people can be taught the impact of global warming and learn how to adapt to climate change in the classroom. Education empowers all people and motivates young people to act.
GFI aims to help the community understand the impact of global warming and increase the climate and sustainability literacy among young people. According to research, there are 3 ways to improve how climate change is taught in school. GFI has taken following steps accordingly:
- Teaching the teachers: It has been argued that some teachers are ill-equipped to educate students about climate change for they lack necessary knowledge, training, and resources. Researchers say that we need to “turbo-charge” teachers own climate education so that they can prepare the students for present and future climate action. Therefore, GFI emphasizes the capacity building of the educators in community level.
- Focus on emotional aspect: Climate anxiety is reportedly widespread among young people. Some research data revealed that almost 75% of them say that they are concerned about the future. Therefore, taking these feelings into account, GFI stresses engaging them with positive activities, such as talking to experts and involving them in designing projects which will help tackle and reduce the effects of climate change.
- Advocacy to include climate change and sustainability in school curriculum: GFI strongly advocates having climate change and sustainability a place on the school curriculum. Climate change is already taught across subjects or integrated into other subjects in many schools. However, it is often under-prioritized by some Therefore, we argue, climate change and sustainability should be a standalone subject.