This article is a lightly-adapted extract from our recent co-publication - The key contributions of subjects to climate change and nature education.
In 2021, Professor Stephen Sterling argued that education systems take one of four approaches to the climate change and sustainability agenda: (1) no response, (2) accommodation, (3) reform, and (4) transformation. He described each approach as follows:
In the first, current global precarities are absent or barely reflected in policies and practices; in the second, institutional responses centre on campus greening and curriculum accommodation in “obvious” disciplines only. The latter two responses go further. A reformative response reflects intentional re-thinking at a policy level leading to shifts across much of the institution. A transformative approach nurtures a sustainability ethos as the driver of purpose, policy, and practice. (Sterling, 2021)
Sterling is referring here to higher education, but this framework can also be used to evaluate how the sustainability agenda is approached in our early years, primary, and secondary level education settings.
The Department for Education (DfE) in England has, to date, followed an ‘accommodation’ approach. Over the last few decades, the extent to which sustainability is accommodated has fluctuated, but has trended overall towards greater accommodation.
The question therefore is what would it mean to further accommodate the sustainability agenda? What, specifically, could the DfE do in relation to the curriculum?
This was the primary focus on our recently published curriculum policy proposal, the appendix of which this article is adapted from.
The Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), building on the work of many others, has recently published ‘A Curriculum for Climate Literacy’ that proposes ways to accommodate climate change in the National Curriculum. Helpfully, their focus extends beyond the “obvious” disciplines.
They suggest ways to deepen students’ knowledge of climate change across all subjects with the goal of developing their climate literacy. RMetS define climate literacy as: “an understanding of climate science as well as the complex social and economic factors which relate to an understanding of the interaction between people and the climate system.”
Such climate literacy is undoubtedly important and foundational. If students in England were to gain it, they would be better able to understand the vast predicament that the climate and nature crisis presents, its causes, impacts, and the mitigative and adaptive responses that are available to them and to society.
To complement climate literacy, and to ensure that understanding can turn into action, students also need to learn the skills required to be inventors, developers, testers, scalers, as well as adopters of appropriate and effective responses and solutions. Crucially, students also need capabilities that enable and motivate them to take care of themselves and the natural world as the crisis develops.
We return here to Stephen Sterling:
The world is increasingly complex, interdependent and unsustainable, yet conversely, the way we perceive, think, and educate tends to be fragmentary and limited, and we tend to live ‘like there’s no tomorrow’. Addressing this mismatch requires developing competencies in systems thinking, critical thinking and creative thinking, but it requires something more fundamental and challenging besides: no less than our becoming ‘conscious agents of cultural evolution’ (Gardner 2001, p. 206) towards a more ecological culture and participative worldview, consistent with and able to address the highly interconnected and endangered world we have created. (Sterling, 2009)
We know that students’ competencies in systems thinking, critical thinking and creative thinking can be nurtured through the national curriculum. Indeed, we know that these are goals for many schools, teachers and students. What we cannot guarantee, however, is that the nurturing of these competencies is enough. If the goal is to ensure our young people are equipped to address the climate and nature crisis, then we need to do more. History is littered with examples of individuals who had well-developed systems, critical and creative thinking skills, but put them to use in the service of goals that turned out to be less than beneficial to society and the planet.
Sterling, therefore, goes further than simply making calls for systems, critical and creative thinking. He does not dismiss them, or the need for them, but he adds ‘ecological thinking’ as a key goal. It would not be revolutionary for the national curriculum to add this as a goal too.
Ecological thinkers do not just understand the relationships, interconnections, and interdependencies that shape the world. They do not just have the critical, creative and imaginative thinking skills to see and comprehend alternative visions of the future, they have something else too.
What sets ecological thinkers apart is that they feel those interconnections and interdependencies too; they relate. It is an emotional relationship to the land, to the oceans, to other people, and other species; it is a relationship over time and space. They come to feel connected rather than separate as beings, and this develops within them a deep sense of care for whoever or whatever they feel newly related to. It is from this place that their motivation to be ‘conscious agents of cultural evolution’ grows.
The National Curriculum needs to evolve so that it begins to develop not just critical, systems, and creative thinkers, but ecological thinkers. We need learners who think not just about the planet, but for and with the planet. In fact, we need learners who think as the planet. None of us are, after all, separate from the planet; we are the planet.
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Webinar panellists:
Morgan Phillips
Director of Education and Youth Engagement
Global Action Plan
Morgan holds a PhD in sustainability education and leads Global Action Plan's work on education and youth engagement. He also volunteers at The Glacier Trust, sits on the education committee for Black Mountains College, and is a governor at New Quay Primary School in west Wales.
Alison Kitson
Programme Director
UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainabiity Education
Dr Alison Kitson is Programme Director and co-founder of UCL's Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education where she leads Teaching for Sustainable Futures, a professional development programme to help teachers embed climate change and nature education across all subjects and age phases. Alison began her career teaching history in English secondary schools before moving to the University of Warwick to work in initial teacher education. From there she moved to the Training and Development Agency for Schools as a Programme Director for CPD. She has worked at the UCL Institute of Education since 2008 in a number of roles including as Director of Initial Teacher Education. A commitment to curriculum and teacher development has underpinned her career coupled with a conviction that education needs to evolve in response to the challenges - and opportunities - of our time.
Justin Dillon
Professor of Science and Environmental Education
UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education
Justin Dillon is Professor of Science and Environmental Education in the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education at University College London. He is Guest Professor at Zhejiang University, China and was the 2024 CJ Koh Professor in Education, at the National Institute for Education, Singapore. Justin taught science in London schools for 10 years before joining King’s College London in 1989. In 2014, he was appointed Head of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol. Justin joined the University of Exeter in 2017 where he was Director of Research in the School of Education. He returned to London in 2022 to take a chair at UCL. Justin was President of the European Science Education Research Association from 2007-11. He is President of the National Association for Environmental Education, Chair of trustees at the Exeter Science Centre and a trustee of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom. In 2023, Justin was presented with a Mariano Gago lifetime achievement award by Ecsite, the European association for science and discovery centres, for his commitment to science engagement. He edits the journal, Studies in Science Education and is Associate Editor of Environmental Education Research.
Nasreen Majid
Lecturer in Education, Associate Fellow | Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education
Dr Nasreen Majid is an Associate Fellow of UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education. She has led the development of the primary mathematics professional development materials for the Centre’s Teaching for Sustainable Future module series. Nasreen’s career in education began in primary schools where she led the teaching and learning of mathematics and was an Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) for mathematics and science. She moved to The University of Reading to work in Initial Teacher Education where she held a range of jobs, including leading the undergraduate Initial Teacher Education programme and a Masters Mathematics Specialism programme. Nasreen has led curriculum development throughout her career, including developing an innovate Mathematics Specialism course for undergraduate pre-service teachers to leading the development and piloting of a Framework for pre-service teachers to develop their climate literacies. Nasreen has worked with primary school students and colleagues on a BERA funded Curriculum Development project on Nature Connectedness through the Arts. Her most recent project has explored how mathematics skills can be developed through a biodiversity project in primary schools.
Liz Moorse
Chief Executive
Association for Citizenship Teaching
Liz Moorse leads the Association for Citizenship a charity, membership organisation and the voice for Citizenship education. Working with the Board of Trustees, Teacher Council and staff, Liz overseas the implementation of the organisational strategic plan and key programmes of work, including the Active Citizenship in Schools Programme and the Five Nations Network in the UK and Ireland. She has a MSc Politics and Public Policy from Birkbeck London and a BA Hons Geography with Archaeology from Manchester University. Liz has worked in education policy for over twenty-five years and led the development of Citizenship as a new curriculum subject in previous roles for central government. She has expertise in national curriculum reviews, curriculum design and national policy. Liz is a Director of the Council for Subject Associations. She is also the Department for Education’s UK representative to the Council of Europe Education Policy Network on Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights. She has various strategic roles including supporting the European Space for Citizenship. Liz is a regular speaker at conferences and has written extensively on Citizenship education in the curriculum. Outside of work, Liz is an avid Watford FC fan, and enjoys ballet, tea and cake.
Verity Dove
History Teacher
The Cotswold School
Verity Dove has been a History teacher at The Cotswold School in Gloucestershire for 10 years and is also Subject Lead for GITEP’s History teacher training course. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Education at the University of Bristol, alongside teaching, with a focus on teacher perceptions of including environmental histories in Key Stage 3 teaching and learning. During her teaching career, Verity has had a variety of roles including International Co-ordinator and Second in History. She has a range of experience in teacher training: working as a mentor for trainee and Early Career teachers in school and also working as a Curriculum Tutor on the University of Oxford PGCE programme.
Rosie Wilson
Teacher and Creative Practitioner
Rosie Wilson is a practising teacher and creative practitioner specialising in P4C which is Philosophy for Children and Communities. She is especially interested in supporting children and young people to gain access to critical knowledge and critical thinking to help them be agents in their own lives now and in the future. She works across primary settings facilitating philosophical enquiries and exercises with children and supporting and training staff in doing this. She also develops and facilitates nature connectedness activities for children and teachers, and these two branches have recently come together as she is now one of the trainers running the Thinking with Nature course team at Thoughtful, the P4C charity. Rosie's lifelong connection with the environment including climate and nature comes into all aspects of her work.
Rachel Sawle
Year 3 Teacher
West Lodge Primary School, North West London
Rachel Sawle is the Science and Sustainability Leader and a Year 3 teacher at West Lodge Primary School in North West London. The school has been collaborating the UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education on integrating sustainability teaching and learning with the primary curriculum. Rachel is also pursuing a PhD at King’s College London in science education research. Her thesis explores children’s plant awareness.
Alec Fullerton
Teacher of French and English
Alec Fullerton is an English and French teacher at Sir Thomas Rich's School in Gloucester. He is currently undertaking an MA in Environmental Humanities at the University of Warwick. Recent research has looked at feral ecologies and the global phosphate commodity chain. Alec incorporates this learning into his teaching practice, along with a broader effort to embed climate education across the curriculum. Most recently, he led a series of Ecopoetry workshops, which culminated in a trip where students walked the 'Laurie Lee Wildlife Way' and produced their own poems for an anthology. Alec is also involved in the NEU as Environment Officer for the Gloucestershire district, as well as Green Rep in his workplace. Alec helps run the Gloucester Climate Action Network.
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