The Transform Our World Youth Ambassadors have created their own campaign - #EqualEcoEducation, calling for environmental education to be a core component of all children’s and young people’s education. Read their campaign message and sign their petition below.
We want better environmental education for everyone
Time is running out.
The human-made climate emergency threatens our future and the very existence of the natural world we care so deeply about.
We want a green and thriving planet with a harmony between humans and nature. A planet that is fair, where we live good lives within the Earth's limits.
We believe that environmental education is key to the world we describe above.
What is the problem?
As a group of young people from the UK, we have seen first-hand the uneven distribution of what we’re learning about at school. Environmental education across the UK is not equal. Our learning often lacks a focus on the local effects of climate change and doesn’t always link to the context of our lives.
Natural England reported in April 2022 that ‘80% of children and young people in this survey agreed that looking after the environment was important to them and 83% said they wanted to do more to look after the environment.’
We want to take action, but many of us lack the support and opportunities we need. For many of us, the result is growing despair and ‘eco’ anxiety.
This needs to change.
What is the change that you want to see?
We are calling on all educational leaders to make environmental education, in all its forms, their priority.
As a bare minimum we want all children and young people to learn about the environment as a core part of our education journey.
However, environmental education in its fullest sense is more than the learning of the facts. Environmental education means learning about the natural world and integrating the outdoors into the classroom.
When we say that we want more and better environmental education this is what we mean:
- Help children to collaborate with one another
- Encourage their creativity
- Nurture their compassion for themselves, each other, and the planet.
- Enable them to grow up prepared for the ever-changing world we live in
We want our knowledge to improve, but also to help us develop skills we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.
What can we do?
We are directing this to education leaders. We want them to deliver a plan to embed environmental education as a core component of all children’s and young people’s education.
Contact
If you would like to know more about Transform Our World, or any of our programmes, please get in touch.
Thank you for submitting your enquiry! We are currently receiving a large number of enquiries and are trying our best to get back to people as soon as possible. In the meantime, you might find one of the following links helpful:
Access catch up content from the Transform Our World Youth Summit
As a Transform Our World user, you can access the content from the Transform Our World Youth Summit and catch up on the content across three themed days, looking at individual actions we can do, people in power we can influence and the importance of living our true values.
Follow the links below and check out the timestamp guide to navigate the content.
- Are you a teacher? Learn about how to use the website here.
- Looking for teaching resources? You can find our collection of highly-rated resources here.
- Looking for something more long-term? Check out our featured programmes here.
- Want to see what other schools have been up to? Have a read of some case studies here.
- Alternatively, take a look at our FAQs and About pages as they might help to answer your question(s).
All the best,
The Transform Our World team
is brought to you by
All content © 2023 Global Action Plan, except for partner content which belongs to the linked organisations. Global Action Plan co-ordinates Transform Our World and is a charity registered in England and Wales number 1026148, and in Scotland number SC041260. Tel: 0204 566 9904