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Research article

Responding to the environmental crisis through education: the imperative for teacher support across all disciplines

Authors
  • Kate Greer orcid logo (IOE, UCLs Faculty of Education and Society, University College London)
  • Nicola Walshe (IOE, UCLs Faculty of Education and Society, University College London)
  • Alison Kitson (IOE, UCLs Faculty of Education and Society, University College London)
  • Justin Dillon (IOE, UCLs Faculty of Education and Society, University College London)

This article is an accepted preprint. Production is underway.

Abstract

The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC, 2023) sets out sobering scenarios about the future for our young people and appeals for “deep, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” (ibid., p. 12). Although technological responses are essential to achieve these reductions, technocratic solutions will not solve the environmental crisis; instead, a widespread societal transformation is needed. Education can play a profound role in this transformation as it is fundamental to building a society with knowledge, skills and wherewithal to boldly tackle climate change as well as the broader environmental crisis. This commentary reflects on multiple dimensions of this role and particularly focuses on schools and the important contribution that all subjects can make towards developing interdisciplinary, complex understandings of the environmental crisis and how we can live more sustainably. Drawing from a recent nation-wide survey of teachers in England carried out by UCLs Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education (Greer, Sheldrake, et al., 2023), we highlight a troubling lack of engagement in formal professional development related to climate change and sustainability, even amongst a ‘climate change engaged’ cohort of teachers, and the imperative for comprehensive professional development for teachers from across all disciplines, as part of the response to the environmental crisis.

Keywords: Education, Climate Change, The Environment, Knowledge, Teachers, Professional Development, Climate, Environment

Accepted on
21 Jun 2024
Preprint Under Review
License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

 Open peer review from Melissa Glackin

Review
Thank you for sharing the open commentary titled: Responding to the environmental crisis through education: the imperative for teacher support across all disciplines. I understand that this article satisfies the submission category as it provides a short communication of the preliminary results of primary data sets. The data set explored is a nationwide survey of teachers, working in English schools, who responded to prompts related to Climate Change Education.

I appreciated reading, and learning from, this article – it condensed many ideas into an accessible read – no easy undertaking! The rationale for the current work was clear – and I applaud all efforts in the area. The driving aims were also clear: to develop essential and worthwhile professional development for teachers so that they are better equipped to support their students to respond to the environmental crisis. Given this, I just have two queries/suggestions.

First, currently, the survey reports that only 13% of respondents received climate and sustainability professional development as part of their Initial Teacher Education. This figure possibly masks how climate and sustainability content and professional development strategies are understood. Might it be useful to acknowledge what the survey omits and how future research approaches will be required (or are currently being used) to explore teacher’s understandings further? That is to say, as a high number of respondents identified as geographers and scientists, considerations of topics related to, for example, ecological systems (including food chains) and energy cycles (including carbon and water cycles), might not have been badged, or siloed out as Climate Change Education, but might have included, or indeed foregrounded issues of ecological breakdowns within the teaching. Further, professional development is often framed as an activity which is ‘done’ to participants, something that we attend. However, seen in another way, professional development frequently occurs in unplanned situational contexts. This is particularly true, and important to underline, in the preparation of teachers, which is predominantly taking place in schools, alongside mentors. That is, development occurs in more of- the-cuff, reactionary, and informal ways. Here, perhaps to build on and better understand the current findings, interviews might be useful to tease out the ‘other’ less reported, but equally important, opportunities that teachers are undertaking related to environmental issues.

The second point relates to the approaches used within the new professional development programme – Teaching for Sustainable Futures. Given the tremendous amount of work that has taken place in the centre since the original submission of this paper, might it be timely to offer an update as to how the professional development is progressing? This would be particularly beneficial in terms of understanding how teachers are being supported to include in their teaching ‘socio-emotional and indigenous knowledge’ and how their practice is interpreting ‘interdisciplinary, complex understandings of the environmental crisis and how we can live more sustainably’. More within this commentary on this translation from survey to practice would be enlightening and unique – providing important signposting for those in teacher education.

Note:
This review refers to round of peer review and may pertain to an earlier version of the document.

 Open peer review from Heather King

Review
I enjoyed reading this paper and found it to be highly accessible and informative. Whilst short, it develops a clear argument for greater attention to be paid to the professional training of teachers in order to better support learners to meaningfully respond to the climate crisis.

The paper makes a specific contribution and is appropriately supported by the literature. The paper is only 2 and half pages long, and thus the abstract seems a little too long in comparison!

I have a couple of niggles regarding the framing of the brand argument which I develop below, but otherwise look forward to reading an updated version with news of recent developments in the project.


The paper begins by succinctly presenting the crisis which we all face, notes that the current fixation on technocratic solutions are insufficient, and argues the need for societal transformation. The focus then turns to education, but here I found the argument to be phrased a little too dogmatically. For example, the paper asserts that 'humans need to a) learn to avoid reproducing the damaging social structures and attitudes that have led us into the crisis, b) develop the capabilities to repair the environmental damage caused, and c) understand how to forge sustainable ways of living' (page 2). I do not disagree with these points, but suggest that these 'needs' refer to all of humanity, and are not simply the concern of school-aged learners and their teachers - the primary foci of the paper. I would thus recommend that some additional framing be added to acknowledge that school populations (ie young people) are inheriting the crisis and that efforts to build a more just society are not only the responsibility of schools (and indeed that education is not synonymous with schooling). This sentiment is broadly presented in the third paragraph, but more could be done here to segue between the needs for a wider societal response and what can be done specifically to support such a response in schools.

The paper moves on to discuss the limited inclusion of climate change in the National Curriculum and cites an earlier finding that teachers are seeking more time, confidence and resources to address this deficit. Here the authors state that 'the most effective way to reach young people, and to help them develop capabilities to respond to the climate crisis, is through confident and capable teachers' (page 4). Whilst I don't doubt the absolutely key role of teachers, I do caution against placing all the responsibilities for climate change education on teachers' shoulders. Effective classroom teaching is essential, but it is important here to additionally note the role of assessment and inspection regimes in driving classroom practice. These need changing too! Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly agree with the argument (supported by survey findings) that there is a need for inservice training, and very much applaud the authors development of the professional development programme, 'Teaching for Sustainable Futures'. The authors rightly note that such support is needed across disciplines and arguably should be creative, critical and empathetic.

Notably, the original paper was written in 2023 when many of the programme's resources were still in development. It will be important for the updated paper to report on which resources are now available and also, if possible, provide some insights on how they are being used by teachers, and how young people are responding. Such insights will be useful in helping us to understand the ways in which schools, as one type of education institution, can champion societal transformation.

Note:
This review refers to round of peer review and may pertain to an earlier version of the document.

 Open peer review from Efram Eilam

Review

Review text

This review is provided by Efrat Eilam, Associate Professor, Institute of Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities Program of Arts and Education, Victoria University, Australia  

 

The commentary entitled “Responding to the environmental crisis through education: the imperative for teacher support across all disciplines” briefly describes some survey findings among ‘climate change engaged’ cohort of teachers. The commentary further describes future plans by UCLs Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCCSE) for advancing this educational field.

This commentary adds valuable contribution to the field by highlighting critical gaps in CCCSE implementation and in teacher professional development, and by outlining a path forward.

To further improve the clarity of the commentary and the coherency of the rationale, I would like to make the following suggestions:

Concerning clarity, please provide some more information concerning the surveyed sample, including the teachers’ areas of specialisation and Year Levels. Another point that requires some clarification is in relation to the following quotes: “Amongst this cohort, climate change and sustainability were most commonly incorporated into geography and science in secondary settings” (p. 3); and “this distinct lack of engagement in formal PD, even amongst our ‘climate change engaged’ cohort of teachers who are mostly teachers of geography and science, is troubling” (p. 3). The two statements seem tautological. If most of the survey respondents were geography and science teachers, one would expect that the findings collected from this cohort will indicate that CC is taught primarily in science and geography. Consequently it seems inappropriate to conclude that CCCSE is addressed mainly in geography and science, if other specialist teachers were not sufficiently represented in the sample

Concerning the coherency of the underlying rationale, some of the underlying assumptions need substantiation. Paragraph 2 focuses on describing the role of education as institutions for solving climate change. Here, education is conceived as institutions that work for the purpose of energy conservation. From an education perspective this approach conveys a behaviorist approach to education, where the focus of education is on the end-goals of emission reduction, rather than on the process of education. Gert Biesta (2022) criticized learning outcomes based on behaviour modification, where

… instead of asking what the schools should “do” for society—which seems to have become the most prominent way in which the task of the school is nowadays being conceived—I ask what society should “do” for the school so that the school can be a school (Biesta, 2022, p. 9).

Additionally, Jorgenson et al. (2019) have addressed the behavioural aspect in CCCSE from the perspective of its efficacy. Both forms of critique seem to me worth considering.

Another undiscussed assumption concerns the need to include CCCSE across the curriculum. To substantiate such a taken for granted assumption, there is a need to examine both empirical evidence (what is the evidence that students may study CCCSE better when the topic is taught across the curriculum?) and the theoretical underpinning of the assumption (What epistemic theories support this approach?). Personally, I have not yet seen empirical evidence that support the cross-curriculum approach, often referred to as ‘a whole school approach’. The evidence is mixed at best (please see Niebert, 2019). From the perspectives of theories of learning, some evidence suggests that fragmentation of concepts across various learning areas may hinder conceptual development due to extraneous cognitive load (e.g. Sweller et al., 2019).

The following statement seems to tackle the question of evidence in the following way: “While the knowledge and skills contained within the disciplines of geography and science are important, teaching scientific facts alone can exacerbate eco-anxiety (Ojala, 2016; Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, 2020) which is why teaching across the curriculum is needed” (P. 3).

Firstly, concerning the statement that “teaching scientific facts alone can exacerbate eco-anxiety”, the evidence points to the contrary (please see Zacher & Rudolph, 2023; and Asgarizadeh et al., 2023).

Secondly, the statement presents the unsubstantiated assumption that geography and science teach facts alone. This is far from being correct. Science Educating has been advocating the incorporation of social aspects through various approaches from as early as the 1960’s, with the most recent iteration of this approach, expressed in the ‘Socio Scientific Issues’ approach (Sadler et al., 2006; Zeidler & Newton, 2017). Consequently, the explanation as to why CC needs to be taught through a cross curriculum approach is lacking in factual evidence and theoretical basis.

To summarise, the important work conducted by UCLs Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCCSE) may be enhanced through critical examination of taken for granted assumptions, and by deepening the evidence-basis of approaches to implementation.

References

Asgarizadeh, Z., Gifford, R., & Colborne, L(2023). Predicting climate change anxiety. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 90, 102087. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102087

Biesta, G. (2022). World-centred education: A view for the present. Routledge.

Jorgenson, S. N., Stephens, J. C., & White, B. (2019). Environmental education in transition: A critical review of recent research on climate change and energy education. Journal of Environmental Education, 50(3), 160–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2019.1604478

Niebert, K. (2019). Effective sustainability education is political education. On_Education Journal for Research and Debate, 2(4). http://10.17899/on_ed.2019.4.5

Sadler, T. D., Amirshokoohi, A., Kazempour, M., & Allspaw, K. (2006). Socioscience and ethics in science classrooms: Teacher perspectives and strategies. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 43, 353–376. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tea.20142

Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design: 20 Years Later. Educational Psychology Review 31, 261–292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09465-5

Zacher, H., & Rudolph, C.W. (2023). Environmental knowledge is inversely associated with climate change anxiety. Climatic Change, 176(32). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03518-z

Zeidler, D. L., & Newton, M. H. (2017). Using a socioscientific issues framework for climate change education: An ecojustice approach. Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315629841



Note:
This review refers to round of peer review and may pertain to an earlier version of the document.