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Originally appears in the Summer 2021 issue.
By Erica Phipps, Don Giesbrecht,
and Ian Shanahan
Each year, Healthy Schools Day presents an opportunity to galvanize a collective commitment to healthier and more sustainable learning environments for children and youth in Canada. Amidst escalating concerns about the negative impacts that the climate emergency is having on the physical health, mental wellbeing, and future prospects of today’s young people, there was little debate among the ~25 organizations and youth leaders involved in Healthy Schools Day in Canada that climate action should be the focus of the 2020–2021 campaign.
Through our Five Ways campaign messaging and the SHARE IT | SHOUT OUT youth challenge, the Healthy Schools Day team sought to recognize and celebrate the multiple ways that students, educators, schools, and child care programs are taking action on climate change. Such actions can include things that educational professionals and young people are already doing — with or without an explicit link to climate change — such as biking or walking to school, composting, promoting litterless lunches, reducing energy waste, greening outdoor spaces, and supporting youth voices and leadership. As we learned about and tapped into the diverse array of initiatives that promote such positive actions across Canada, we became curious to know more about the extent to which such efforts are embraced and promoted by early childhood educators across Canada, and what the related motivators and barriers may be. So, we launched a brief survey via the networks of the Canadian Child Care Federation and Green Teacher to hear from educators directly about the ways in which they are incorporating climate-relevant actions into their day-to-day practice. The results of this modest effort are encouraging, if preliminary. From the ~170 early child care educators who responded to the survey, we learned the following:
- In response to the statement “Climate action is a priority for our child care program,” 54% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed.
- In response to the statement “Children in our child care program are regularly involved in activities or initiatives that help to address the causes or impacts of climate change,” 50% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed. Only 19% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed.
- In terms of child care programs’ level of activity in six different areas, see below the results obtained.
- In response to the question “What motivates you to include climate change issues in your educational practice?” — for which all applicable answers from a list of options could be selected — 87% of respondents selected “I feel it is important,” while 48% selected “Students/children are interested.” Conversely, only 14% of respondents indicated that they were motivated from “on high,” either from administration or curriculum requirements.
- Regarding barriers, in response to the question “What are the reasons you don’t include climate change issues in your educational practice?” — for which all applicable answers from a list of options could be selected — 42% of respondents indicated that they “don’t have the knowledge and/or tools,” while 54% noted that they “don’t feel it is appropriate for the age group(s) I work with.”
While the number of elementary and secondary school teachers who completed the survey was not sufficient to draw conclusions, their responses were generally consistent with the experiences and views expressed by early childhood educators, with elementary and secondary school students slightly more engaged in learning activities about climate change based on curriculum requirements.
As encouraging as these results are, there is clearly more work to be done both in the early childhood sphere as well as in K–12 classrooms to enhance young learners’ climate literacy. Canada does not have a formalized overarching framework for climate change education, so there are gaps, inconsistencies, and imbalances across the country. In the United States, by contrast, the Next Generation Science Standards framework for K–12 students has “Global Climate Change” included as one of its “Disciplinary Core Ideas.” According to the National Science Teaching Association, to date, “Twenty states and the District of Columbia (representing over 36% of U.S. students) have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).”
Efforts to more firmly integrate climate literacy into curricula around the world are being expedited in response to UNESCO’s just-released report Learn for Our Planet, co-authored by Aaron Benavot at the University at Albany-State University of New York and Marcia McKenzie at the Sustainability and Education Policy Network (SEPN, one of our Healthy Schools Day collaborators). The report’s findings are the motivation for UNESCO to set a global target “to make environmental education a core curriculum component in all countries by 2025.” One of the top recommendations from the report is that “More emphasis should be given to environmental themes in education, with a particular need to expand integration of climate change and biodiversity.” Regardless of how (if at all) climate change is presently addressed in your curriculum, there are a bevy of best practices suggested in the following article, co-authored by Gareth Thomson and Ian Shanahan.
As educators and students alike struggle with the heavy weight of the climate crisis, it can be uplifting and motivating to recognize the great potential that exists within our learning environments to embody the kind of whole-of-society commitment to climate action that Seth Klein, author of A Good War (see sidebar), and others are calling for to avert the dystopian future of unbridled climate change. And while it is another heavy burden for our young people to endure, the COVID pandemic — and the pan-societal efforts to curb the virus’s spread — have a silver lining. As Klein rightly points out, the fact that all levels of society have rallied to confront the COVID pandemic is evidence that Canada and many countries around the world have the heart and capacity to rise to an existential threat. As with COVID, we must confront the climate emergency as if our lives, and our kids’ futures, depend on it. Because they do. And the great thing is that, while we are at it, we may just be able to create a society that is better, greener, healthier, and more just than the one we now inhabit.
Erica Phipps Erica Phipps is Executive Director of the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE) — a multi-sectoral collaboration of organizations, including CCCF and Green Teacher, that work together to protect children’s health from environmental exposures to toxic chemicals and pollutants. Erica also currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Ottawa.
Don Giesbrecht is CEO of the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF), Canada’s largest member based early learning and child care organization. He is currently a member of Canada’s federal government’s Expert Panel on Early Learning and Child Care Data and Research, the Province of BC’s Childcare Sector Labour Market Partnership and of the Vanier Institute for the Family Canadian Military and Veteran Family Leadership Circle.
Ian Shanahan is Green Teacher’s General Editor, webinar host, and co-host of the podcasts Talking with Green Teachers: The Environmental Education Podcast and Earthy Chats.