Senior Researcher, New Zealand Council for Educational Research
Climate change will have ‘major impacts’ within our students’ lifetimes, according to more than half of the primary and intermediate principals and teachers surveyed by NZCER in 2019 (Figure 1).1 FIGURE 1: What impact will climate change have on the place and community where your school is located? Within your students’ lifetimes?
Within your lifetime?
Not sure
None
Minor
Moderate
Major
SOURCE: NZCER 2019 survey responses from primary and intermediate principals (n=145) and teachers (n=620)
In 2019, tens of thousands of New Zealand students joined millions of others around the globe in the school strike for the climate (SS4C) marches, demanding that leaders and governments act faster to address the climate crisis. Other surveys show that a majority of New Zealanders are concerned about climate change (Leining & White, 2015) and think more action is needed (IAG-Ipsos, 2018). Climate change impacts everything, including land and water, food systems, economies, health, migration, jobs, access to resources, and much more. The best science knowledge available provides a clear signal about the urgency of action required (Table 1). The all-encompassing nature of climate change poses an unprecedented challenge to political leaders, policymakers, and leaders within every sector, requiring us to address traditionally separate issues in an interconnected manner (UNESCO, 2015). What can or should the education sector be doing about Resources to kickstart your thinking Climate Change – prepare today, live well tomorrow is a new teaching resource for Years 7–10 on TKI2. The resource includes information and activities to help build knowledge about climate change, guidance for local action, and a wellbeing guide. Getting climate ready: A guide for schools on climate action (Gibb, 2016) outlines strategies for whole-school approaches that encompass governance, teaching and learning, school facilities and operations, and community partnerships. In the New Zealand context, Enviroschools also has a well-developed kaupapa for whole-school approaches to sustainability.
NZCER research team: Rachel Bolstad, Sophie Watson, Sinead Overbye (L-R)
climate change? This question drives NZCER’s current research project: Education policy and practice for a changing climate: What are the options? We’re exploring what a ‘whole-system’ educational response to climate change might look like in Aotearoa New Zealand. We have been reviewing national and international literature, and surveying and interviewing a range of people. The research is still in progress. This article pulls out a few emerging themes and provides ideas about what we can do as schools and as an education system. It’s not about pushing the burden on to young people Thinking about climate change can trigger a range of intellectual and emotional responses, including scepticism, confusion, fear, disbelief, anger, grief, paralysis, and avoidance. Understandably, some educators have mixed feelings about climate change being part of young people’s education. Some principals in our survey said, ‘Let young children enjoy their childhood’ and, ‘I don’t The Climate change empowerment handbook (2017) from the Australian Psychological Society provides eight strategies to help people to engage with the challenge of climate change, using the acronym A.C.T.I.V.A.T.E. The first T stands for talk about it, and the I stands for inspire positive visions. Mental health and our changing climate: Impacts, implications, and guidance (Clayton et al., 2017), a report from the American Psychological Association, includes five top tips for leaders and practitioners: 1) build belief in one’s own resilience, 2) foster optimism, 3) cultivate active coping and self-regulation skills, 4) maintain practices that help to provide a sense of meaning, and 5) promote connectedness to family, place, culture, and community.
– what can schools do?
believe it should be pushed upon primary age children. Enough is enough! Stop making it their responsibility!’. However, a systemic educational response to climate change is not about placing the burden on young people, nor making it their responsibility to fix the problems of society. Nor is it about pushing, ‘yet another thing’ onto schools to ‘do’, on top of all the other things. It is about bringing an informed, climate-conscious way of thinking into all aspects of education. This includes looking at how we support young people’s learning, as well as critically reflecting on our own values, beliefs, and practices as educators and as a system.
climate-changed future. This means thinking about curriculum, teaching, and learning, and every other aspect of our education system, including infrastructure, transport, governance, workforce, and schools’ long-term relationship to their places and communities. Some responses will require immediate action, and some will require vision and longterm planning. Many responses will require the engagement and support of local communities, the general public, and alignment with other sectors. Educational leaders at all levels need to help society prepare for life in a changing climate. Leaders are ‘uniquely positioned to foster new levels of support for climate solutions’ and can help It’s about seeing education’s by becoming climate-literate and role in the bigger picture being ‘vocal, model leaders within Students from Ross Intermediate who worked with Ekos to A systemic educational response [their] communities’ (Clayton et develop school carbon calculator requires thinking beyond the al., 2017, p. 8) short-term inputs and outcomes that drive our daily activities. It calls on us to think into the long-term future, and ask how our Education’s contribution from a global perspective work today contributes to a liveable world for future generations. Globally, education is seen as playing a central role in responding At its deepest level, it asks us to think about purpose, and whether to climate change. Article 6 of the UNFCCC (1992) outlines the the things we’re currently doing are the right things to do for a need for education, training, and public awareness initiatives ‘to Table 1: Climate change: Why action is needed Climate change has always occurred on our planet as a result of changes within our atmosphere, biosphere, lands, and waters. However, research indicates that high amounts of greenhouse gas emissions (such as CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide) through human activities have exacerbated warming of the atmosphere. Earth has already experienced a 1 degree global temperature rise, compared with pre-industrial times. New Zealand is a signatory to The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international environmental treaty whose objective is to, ‘stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’ The scientific community’s consensus is that given existing greenhouse gas emissions, we are already ‘locked in’ to at least a 1.5 degree average temperature rise. In October 2018, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2018) released a landmark report in which leading scientists warned that we may have only a dozen years left to act to keep the temperature rise
within +1.5 degrees. Greater warming will lead to greater impacts, including some that will be irreversible. In some scenarios we may reach 3 degrees within this century. The associated effects of rising global temperatures present multiple environmental, social, economic, political, cultural, and ethical challenges for human societies. For more about climate change impacts for New Zealand, see the Ministry for the Environment’s recent report, Environment Aotearoa (2019). Mitigation and adaptation These two key responses to climate change have implications for every sector of human activity. Mitigation – this describes actions to slow down or stop activities which cause global warming, reducing the severity of impact, and limiting various feedback loops that can amplify the damaging effects of temperature rise. Adaption – this involves anticipating, planning, and preparing for the changes that will occur in our lifetimes and for future generations – given that some temperature rise can no longer be prevented or reversed.
reduce the impact of climate change by enabling society to be a part of the solution.’3 Although the education sector is not a high contributor to greenhouse gas emissions relative to other industries, education can contribute directly and indirectly to mitigation and adaptation efforts. Education also needs to respond and have input into changes that will happen across many other sectors.
FIGURE 2: School-wide practices reported by primary and intermediate principals (n=145)
Climate change is a social justice issue In terms of whole-system plans and strategies, there has been more activity in least-developed countries, who are experiencing the impacts of climate change faster and more severely. There has been less forward-planning in wealthier, developed countries, like New Zealand, which also tend to be high per-capita contributors to GHG emissions. This is one of many ways in which climate change exacerbates other global and social inequities. As one interviewee noted, ‘Our middle-classes live in a way that we can be quite resilient or even isolated from a lot of those changes . . . and in that middle class we need to sense the consequences of all of this to take more meaningful action’. People we have interviewed note that within New Zealand, climate change is likely to put even more stress on alreadyvulnerable groups including those in poverty, Pacific migrants, communities with complex social issues, and communities that may be forced to retreat from rising sea levels, erosion, flooding, or fire. Transitioning to a low-emissions economy will also affect people in certain industries and communities. It is important that these communities are supported through a ‘just transition’.4
We support students who choose to take part in protests or school strike action about climate issues.
What can we do? Souza et al. (2019) describe two big domains upon which we can collectively act with respect to climate change and sustainability: the ‘material’ and the ‘immaterial’ (Table 2) Table 2: Two domains over which we have influence Material ‘Things’
Our built world, the buildings, objects, vehicles, materials and products that we use and consume, and waste products we generate.
Immaterial ‘Ideas and ways’
How we think, what we value, how we act in the world, our visions and expectations of how the world should be.
Material/tangible actions There are direct climate benefits to reducing the environmental footprint of our materials and infrastructure, and seeking more efficient, cleaner, and longer-lasting alternatives. In November 2019 the government announced that there would be more support for schools to reduce energy consumption and environmental impact, including a $5 million contestable fund for sustainability initiatives such as installing solar panels, replacing inefficient heating systems, and removing coal boilers. New school builds also provide opportunities for thinking in climate-smart ways. What’s your school’s carbon footprint? Understanding carbon footprints is a great starting point for making sense of how everyday activities contribute to climate change, and identifying areas for improvement. Students and teachers at Ross Intermediate school worked with Ekos, a social enterprise, to develop a free school carbon footprint calculator, launched in December 2019. See https://ekos.org.nz/school-calculator.
We have a school-wide focus on kaitiakitanga/care for the environment.
We have a school-wide focus on reducing waste.
We have a school-wide focus on reducing resource consumption (including energy) within the school.
Our school connects with local and/or regional organisations that take action on climate change. We have a school-wide focus on reducing emissions relating to transport.
100 90 80 70 No response
60 50 40 30 20 10 Strongly disagree
10 6
Disagree
20 30 40 50 60 70 Agree
80 90 100
Strongly agree
SOURCE: NZCER 2019 national survey of primary and intermediate schools
Schools can also have a direct influence on living systems within or near the school grounds. Planting trees, building and sustaining food gardens, composting, worm farming, beekeeping, avoiding food waste, and building healthy soil all have climate impact benefits, as well as presenting rich opportunities for student learning and engagement. In the 2019 NZCER national survey of primary and intermediate schools, most principals said Enviroschools or student environmental/ gardening projects were ‘well embedded’ (46 per cent) or ‘partially embedded’ (32 per cent), within their schools and 15 per cent were ‘exploring’ these activities. In another question, most principals indicated a school-wide focus on caring for the environment. Waste-reduction and resource consumption was a focus for many (Figure 2). School transport-related emissions are a more complex challenge. Over half of NZ students now travel to school in a private vehicle (Theunissen, 2019). Schools can encourage low-carbon options such as walking, cycling, and public transport, but this option is not always available for all families. Recognising the significant cumulative CO2 impact of individual school transport choices (Devonport, 2017) highlights the need for creative, futurefocussed urban planning, transport design, including strategies that support children to learn locally Learning to think and live sustainably Education can also focus on the knowledge, values, attitudes, behaviours, and capabilities people need to live sustainably. It is often easy for tangible ‘things’ to become the focus of sustainability initiatives, with less reflective consideration of ‘the deeper values and principles upon which people as individuals and as part of collectives are currently building their future’ (Brouwer et al., 2016, cited in Souza et al., 2019). We must ‘look to fundamentals’ and ‘examine the degree to which existing education is adapted to, and prepares people for, radically different futures.’ (UNESCO, 2012, p.8). One youth climate educator interviewee said that many students she worked with expressed disappointment with the lack of quality climate change education they’d had at school. She reflected that while many students learned about recycling and other ‘low-hanging fruit in the sustainability basket’, climate change ‘is the complex, high-hanging fruit’. Data from primary and intermediate teachers surveyed in 2019 suggests climate and sustainability is addressed to varying degrees in classrooms
FIGURE 3: Primary and intermediate teacher descriptions of classroom practices (n=620) In my class, we talk about changing our lifestyles to reduce our impacts on the environment.
In my class, students learn about ecological and conservation issues for Aotearoa New Zealand.
In my class, students undertake direct actions for the environment.
In my class, we talk about the causes and impacts of climate change.
I have good access to resources/ people/organisations to support education about climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand. In my class we talk about adaptation for living in a changing/warming climate. I find it challenging to address climate change issues in my classroom programme. In my class, students undertake social actions for the environment.
100 90 80 70 No response
27 5
23 7
Strongly disagree
Disagree
60 50 40 30 20 10
indigenous people, and schools are still experienced as ‘white spaces’ by many young Māori and Pacific youth (Milne, 2013). Indigenous people have often been at the forefront of environmental movements as land and water protectors. Indigenous worldviews and knowledges are recognised as a source for solutions and ways of thinking that enable humans to live sustainably with the environment. One challenge for sustainability and climate movements is to enable indigenous people to lead and self-determine their own sustainability priorities, including their rights to preserve and pass down their language, culture, traditional practices, and physical and spiritual relationships with the natural world. There are many opportunities for climate and sustainability education in Aotearoa New Zealand to nurture the potential of young Māori and Pacific people, as well as strengthen and uphold mātauranga Māori, tikanga me te reo Māori, and develop long-term strategies that derive from Māori and Pacific knowledge and traditions.
20 30 40 50 60 70 Agree
80 90 100
Strongly agree
SOURCE: NZCER 2019 national survey of primary and intermediate schools
(Figure 3). However, some young people tell us climate change has virtually never been addressed in their school learning, and many interviewees say it is too dependent on whether individual teachers or schools have the interest and capabilities to address it in their programmes.
How should we respond as an education system? Here are a few big ideas emerging from the international literature, and our own research. Taking action Engaging in positive action is an essential component of effective climate change and sustainability education. Action helps people of all ages to feel that there is something they can do about these problems. As one secondary student put it, ‘My climate anxiety was worse, way worse, before I started acting and it’s worse when I’m not acting than when I am.’ Taking action doesn’t just help with personal wellbeing – it actually makes a difference, however big or small. Believing one’s actions can make a difference to climate change has been positively linked with actually taking action, and vice versa (Leining & White, 2015). Schools and other learning spaces can also be great sites for innovation, where learners can develop and test new ideas, designs, and strategies that can scale up to make big differences.
The hard stuff, and the opportunities When we engage with climate change and sustainability beyond the surface level, we must confront underlying drivers that have led to our present global situation. This includes normalisation of consumption and waste on a massive scale, and global economic systems which don’t factor in the real environmental costs of pro duc tion and consumption. At a deeper level, we can question social and economic systems that allow for high levels of inequity, Empowering and mobilising and worldviews that treat the young people environment as a resource School climate strike marches, 2019 You n g p e op l e h av e t h e to exploit for human benefit. Social systems and norms have grown around these deeper ideas potential and motivation to drive sustainability and climatefor decades, even centuries. Education can help by supporting conscious movements. They also benefit from positive changes learners to understand, critique, challenge, and develop the that can be made for the future. Schools can help by honouring capacity to see alternative ways of thinking about the world and young people’s rights to be centred in plans and decisions their relationship to it. It can be uncomfortable to see that we are that affect them. As one teacher interviewee said ‘the most all ‘part of the problem’ as we go about our day-to-day habits. important things are our students. If we are not going to tackle Education can support people of all ages to navigate through this – in terms of re-shaping our education – and look at what these complex issues, and identify what shifts we can make as our young people want out of it, we are going to get it wrong’. Teachers can use pedagogies that respect and support young individuals, and at collective levels. Sustainability and climate change also intersect with issues people’s capacity to generate creative ideas, approaches, and like colonisation, systemic racism and the harm that has been solutions to problems. Schools can support young people’s done to indigenous people, culture, and lands. Education has a initiative and capacity for leadership and enable students to role to play here, too. Colonial education systems in Aotearoa have a voice in school planning and decision-making. and elsewhere have been complicit in approaches to assimilate
schools are created equal. And in this instance, that’s not going to be acceptable’.
School climate strike marches, 2019
Strengthening local sustainability solutions and climate resilience Local-level activities matter. There are many benefits in connecting with the places and communities in which we live, learn, and work. With support from other local bodies, schools can play a role in empowering communities to engage in local mitigation and adaptation actions, deepen community resilience, and bring together untapped resources and potential within local areas in innovative ways. There are pockets of outstanding practice happening in schools all over New Zealand, often involving links and partnerships with governments, NGOs, businesses who value young people’s involvement and engagement. System-wide, we need to share and celebrate these practices and seek opportunities to cross-fertilise and inspire other schools and communities to show ‘what’s possible’. Building teacher capabilities and supporting rich curriculum design Educators can be powerful agents for change, but many teachers haven’t had explicit guidance about how to approach climate and sustainability education. Teachers may need support to develop pedagogies that are interactive, learner-empowering, action-oriented, and promote critical and systemic thinking, collaborative decision-making. We also need to bring a climate-conscious lens to curriculum planning, within and across learning areas. Local curriculum can be designed to give learners space and opportunity to integrate knowledge from different domains, while building capabilities to plan and carry out meaningful projects that have tangible benefits for people and the environment. There are also system-level implications for national curriculum and assessment design, to ensure climateconscious education is woven into the fabric of our systems and supported in practice. Advancing policy support and strategies for strengthening climate and sustainability education Finally, we need joined-up, forward looking policy and strategies that ensure climate and sustainability education isn’t just something that happens around the edges, or something that is dependent on individual schools and teachers having the motivation and confidence to drive it. This isn’t just a problem we have in Aotearoa New Zealand; it’s a problem for most educational jurisdictions. As one interviewee said, ‘we tend to do a really good job in education of saying, ‘We want to do this’, and then it’s just left to people to get there on their own. Not all
Final thoughts The changes we need to make as a sector, as a society, and as individuals will require sustained collective effort, commitment to a vision for a positive future, and recognising that the viability of future lives depend on the choices we make today. This article has only scratched the surface of the conversations we need to have about systemic educational responses to climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand. If you are interested in following our research, or would like to share what’s happening in relation to climate change at your school, please email rachel. bolstad@nzcer.org.nz or go to our project page www.nzcer.org. nz/research/educational-policy-and-practice-changing-climatewhat-are-options References Australian Psychological Society (2017). Climate change empowerment handbook. Psychological strategies to tackle climate change. https://www.psychology.org.au/for-the-public/Psychologytopics/Climate-change-psychology/Climate-change Clayton, S., Manning, C., Krygsman, K., & Speiser, M. (2017). Mental health and our changing climate: Impacts, implications, and guidance. American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica. Devonport, A. (2017). The impact of secondary school enrolment schemes on school desirability, academic achievement and transport Thesis, Masters of Geographic Information Science, University of Canterbury. Gibb, N. (2016). Getting climate-ready: A guide for schools on climate action. Paris, France. Leining, C., & White, S. (2015). From fact to act: New Zealanders’ beliefs and actions on climate change (Motu Note #19). Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. Milne, B. A. (2013). Colouring in the White Spaces: Reclaiming Cultural Identity in Whitestream Schools. Doctoral thesis, University of Waikato. Ministry for the Environment, & Statistics NZ. (2019). Environment Aotearoa 2019 (New Zealand’s Environmental Reporting Series). Ministry of the Environment. Souza, D. T., Wals, A. E. J., & Jacobi, P. R. (2019). Learning-based transformations towards sustainability: A relational approach based on Humberto Maturana and Paulo Freire. Environmental Education Research, 1–15. Theunissen, M. (2019, October 3). New census data reveals more than half of NZ’s students use private vehicles to commute. Radio New Zealand News. UNESCO. (2015). Not just hot air: Putting climate change education into practice. UNESCO. 1 NZCER’s 2019 national survey of primary and intermediate schools gathered data from a sample of English medium schools. 2 See https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-resources/ Education-for-sustainability/Tools-and-resources 3 See https://unfccc.int/topics/education-and-outreach/ workstreams/education-and-training 4 See https://www.mbie.govt.nz/business-and-employment/ economic-development/just-transition/
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