Student leaders are found in every province and at every grade level. Meet some of the youth who are leading their schools to take positive action.
As the consensus among scientists who suggest urgent action on the climate crisis grows, it is often students who are leading the way to making our schools – and our world – more sustainable. How can educators help kids and youth pursue their interest in sustainability and implement their creative ideas? We spoke with students from three different schools to see what works where they learn.
Westmount Secondary School, Hamilton, Ont.
The members of Westmount Secondary School’s Eco Ninjas environmental activism team have done a lot to make their school a greener and more sustainable place.
They’ve created pollinator and rain gardens, grown fruit and vegetables on campus, and facilitated and expanded recycling and composting in their school. And a big reason that they’ve been able to accomplish all of this – aside from their own ideas and initiative – is thanks to supportive advisory staff like Mr. Holmes, says Grade 13 student Nina Tran, one of the team’s members.
“Mr. Holmes has been brilliant in understanding the perfect balance between pushing students and allowing them to stumble, to fall and to learn,” she explains. “He allows the Westmount Eco Ninjas to be almost completely a student-led, student-built and student-charged team. This is a key role in our success as a club, and our success as individuals.”
Tran’s fellow team member, Lee Frketich, age 17, echoes this: “We’d come to him with these crazy ideas and half of a plan, and rather than shutting us down, he’d just be like, ‘If you think you’re able to do that, go for it.’ Or he’d look at our plan and if he saw major issues with it, rather than telling us no, he’d sit down with us and say, ‘Well, have you considered this?’ And get us to go back and make sure that our plans had the best chance of succeeding while letting us lead.”
Eco Ninjas member Summer Thomas, 18, says this willingness to let students find their own way with support is key to empowering them. “One thing that we have actually noticed, which is a bit surprising, is that the more a teacher steps back and lets the students do their own thing, the better,” she says. “Obviously, guidance is great, and when a student is getting started on their project or if they request guidance then that’s a good time to step in, but teachers should largely step back and let the students kind of figure things out and learn through experience.”
One area that the Eco Ninjas needed help with was in navigating some of the bureaucracy that comes with making changes.
“We had some wonderful advisors in our club who really helped us push the limitations of what could happen,” says Tran. “If we didn’t have an advisor who was willing to explore how we could jump through those hoops, or if we didn’t have administration that was willing to help us in certain methods, then we wouldn’t have been able to grow in the way we have.”
But even with this support, the Eco Ninjas haven’t been able to overcome all of their obstacles. Two projects that haven’t been completed yet because of various policy roadblocks are the installation of solar panels at the school and an update of their school board’s waste management policy. And so, in an effort to make these changes happen and also to be taken more seriously by people, increase their resources and capacity, bypass the limitations of what they can do as a school club, and be able to work with other groups in their community and share ideas to support other schools’ environmental clubs, Tran and Frketich created a non-profit.
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Incorporated in January 2019, the Environmental Community of Hamilton Students – or ECHS, as they prefer to be called – has about 15 official members. Tran and Frketich are its executive directors, as are Thomas and fellow Westmount student Konrad Jasman, who both became a part of ECHS soon after it was founded.
“We were finding a large void where the voice of youth should be,” explains Thomas. “And we wanted to make sure that there was space in the environmental community in Hamilton where the youth voice is listened to and seriously considered,” adds Frketich.
So, the bottom line, whether it’s in a school environment or in the community, is that the way to support students who are motivated to be part of changing the world is to offer space for them to thrive, they explain. “Kids are already inspired and they have ideas and things that they want to do, so give them a place at the table and somewhere where they know they can share those crazy ideas or come up with a proposal and actually see that happen,” says Frketich.
Richmond Secondary School, Richmond, B.C.
Jason Pang, 17, is a veteran of student environmental work. Pang spent three years as president of his high school’s Green Team, the environmental sustainability club at Richmond Secondary School, and was also a green ambassador for the city of Richmond. He is currently in his first year at the University of British Columbia, where he’s doing a Bachelor of Science in Global Resource Systems, which focuses on the world’s resources and how we can properly manage them sustainably.
When Pang first joined a school green team in Grade 8, it was one that was well-established with lots of support from enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff who students could turn to for help and feedback. But when he transferred schools to Richmond Secondary in Grade 10, he found there was lot of work to do on this front. “When I joined I pretty much had to start everything from scratch,” he recalls. But Richmond’s Green Team got a boost when Eugene Harrison began teaching at the school when Pang was in Grade 11. “She really changed the club,” explains Pang. “Because she was so passionate about the issue I was really inspired by her and she really took time to listen to me. Although I had the ideas, Ms. Harrison really brought those ideas together.”
Pang says this teacher helped Green Team members navigate policy and guided them as they ran events (the team did a lot of fundraising and teaching events). But she also brought learning into the equation. “She taught us a lot about scientific approaches toward environmental sustainability and how we can calculate our change, and that was really impactful,” he says.
Two standout projects organized by the Green Team were an electronic waste campaign where the class that collected the most waste won a pizza party, and a spirit week they hosted called Waste Reduction Week. The latter had three goals: improve the school’s waste diversion rate, educate students and staff on the impacts of waste and how that it affects us, and involve students as much as possible. One way they met that last goal was by meeting students where their passions were. For instance, they roped in the school’s business students to run zero waste pop-up shops on campus. “My school drinks a lot of bubble tea, and we wanted to tackle that issue by selling reusable bubble tea cups. That was a really big hit!” he says.
Both efforts won grants at the B.C. Green Games, a competition run by Science World.
While these events and others were successful, Ms. Harrison inspired Pang to go even bigger before he graduated. That project? Getting solar panels for the school. That involved a ton of fundraising, presentations to the school district, being part of an advisory committee, and learning about the engineering behind the panels.
While the initial plan was to have the Green Team pay for the solar panels by fundraising and applying for community grants, after many meetings with school district officials the district surprisingly decided to cover the cost.
“Seeing that I was able to make this impact was the brightest moment I had in high school,” says Pang.
The money they had already raised for the solar panels was used to create a pollinator garden and outdoor learning space at their school that they partnered with the David Suzuki Foundation to build this past summer.
What advice does Pang have for staff who want to support students who do this work? Listen to them and guide them through potential issues, but also model environmentally sustainable approaches and try to work this concept into all lessons. “There are a lot of ways that teachers have the opportunity make environmental sustainability part of the school curriculum,” he notes.
Park Street Elementary, Fredericton, N.B.
A thousand trees will be planted in New Brunswick, thanks to ten-year-old Mackenzie Klinker.
“Our school motto is ‘The best possible place to grow’.”
In late September, Klinker’s mom showed her a short film about student climate activist Greta Thunberg and then took her to the Fredericton climate strike the following day, which spurred the Grade 5 student at Park Street Elementary to launch her first environmental campaign. “I watched a video with my mom on climate change and it said that 200 species of animals go extinct every day. I didn’t know that and I really didn’t like that,” she recalls. “Our school motto is ‘The best possible place to grow,’ so I thought, ‘Then we should grow something.’ That’s why I decided I want to plant a thousand trees and help fight climate change.”
Klinker first took action by writing a letter to her school’s principal, Rien Meesters, vice principal, Mme. Gauvin, and teacher, Mme. Howlett, asking for their support.
Mme. Howlett helped find a solution. She suggested reaching out to the Nashwaak Watershed Association. They selected the types of trees to plant and the location: the bank of the Nashwaak River.
And so, just a few weeks later, Klinker and her whole class headed out to the river and planted 29 trees. They also got a science lesson in the outing, too, in that they learned about seeds and got to go critter dipping, where they used a net to find creatures, like backswimmers, in a nearby pond.
Now that the first batch of trees has been planted, they have 971 to go. And the whole school plans to help her meet that goal when the weather is warmer. “The rest of the staff are planning for each classroom to do something in the spring,” explains Meesters.
And Klinker wants to keep it going even longer: “I’d like it to continue every single year here at Park Street,” she says.
This whole project came together in a lightning-quick fashion, in part due to the responsiveness of the staff at Park Street and their willingness to act on Klinker’s suggestions.
“Kids can help think of ideas and what they would like to do. Then the teachers can support them for their projects and help make them possible,” she suggests. She also wants teachers to bring climate change education into the classroom when kids are younger. And she’s got a message for all adults about listening to kids on climate action: “It’s our future, so we want them to do stuff so we can have a good future.”
Photos: courtesy of Nina Tran, Olwyn Klinker and Jason Pang
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
Are we finally waking up to the critical need for climate change action? Is it too late? As we finalized the articles for this issue, Australia was literally on fire, suffering devastating and possibly irreversible losses to habitat and wildlife, not to mention loss of human life and thousands of homes. And this is only one of several ecological debts that are coming past due.
If young people are worried and angry about the crisis that lies ahead for them, they have every right to be. They’ve been left holding the bag, and they know it. So how do we equip them to address these challenges in a positive way that doesn’t just create more anxiety and fear?
Environmental educators know that real action that has a real impact is the strongest antidote to feelings of helplessness and despair. That’s why, in this issue on environmental education, we wanted to stress approaches that involve students in action projects to mitigate environmental damage, and schools that “walk the walk” by reducing their own carbon footprint. We were interested in how schools are “greening up” through both education andaction.
There is plenty in this issue to inspire educators to take up the green torch. But what has stayed with me is a finding from the survey conducted by Lakehead University and Learning for a Sustainable Future, reported on in “Climate Change Education and the Canadian Classroom: Nearly half of Canadian students do not believe that human action will be effective in mitigating climate change. That’s a heavy weight for kids to carry. The authors say, “It is critically important, therefore, to target this group with climate change education that is action- and solutions-oriented to combat eco-anxiety and hopelessness.”
The articles in this issue show just what can be done when students are energized to act and school and board administrations are willing to step up and support them. From the EcoSchools Program that began in Toronto and is spreading across the country, to the eco-projects initiated and led by the students profiled by Alex Mlynek (web exclusive), to the work done by Brilliant Labs in Atlantic Canada to facilitate students’ innovative tech solutions supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals, there is no shortage of green ideas in our schools. It is not such a big stretch to imagine that Canadian schools could join the ranks of those leading the way in sustainable living and environmental stewardship.
Photo: courtesy Laryssa Gorecki
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
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Many of our students are passionate about environmental protection – but do they know what jobs are available in this field? Bringing professionals into the classroom gives students a window into the real work being done and inspires them to get more involved.
This is the question ecologist Philippe Fernandez-Fournier hears most often when he visits high schools in British Columbia. Fernandez-Fournier is a PhD student at Simon Fraser University and the co-founder of local conservation NGO, Wide Open Projects, based in Vancouver.
“Students want to know what’s available to them career-wise if they take the path of ecological studies and unfortunately, sometimes it seems to them like there just aren’t that many opportunities,” says Fernandez-Fournier. “But that isn’t true. It can be difficult, but it’s not impossible.”
“How do we, as educators and parents, channel this passion into creating practical higher education and career opportunities for them?”
For students in Canada today and around the globe, there’s no shortage of passion and ambition when it comes to finding creative solutions to environmental issues.
These are the children and teens coming of age in a more enlightened culture, eyes open to the realities of destructive human activities on the planet.
More than any other group of young people in history, today’s students are keenly aware of the challenges we face due to climate change.
More importantly, these young people know that they will bear the brunt of the consequences if we fail to make big changes soon.
We have young, enthusiastic students ready to become green ambassadors of change in the work force. The question is: How do we, as educators and parents, channel this passion into creating practical higher education and career opportunities for them?
Fernandez-Fournier and others like him are stepping up to help, hoping to show high school students interested in ecology that there are indeed pathways to success. “When I was an undergrad in biology,” says Fernandez-Fournier, “the only opportunities shown to me at the time were lab work, which I didn’t find that interesting. But as I got to know and connect with hands-on field ecologists, I became sure of the career path I’m on now. I want to share that excitement with other young students.”
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Fernandez-Fournier started as an undergraduate student in a lab at McGill University in Montreal, and got his first taste of ecological field work volunteering with an organization called Operation Wallacea in Honduras. He never stopped after that; his master’s research at the University of British Columbia led him to study spiders in the jungles of Ecuador. His discovery of a parasitoid wasp that controls the minds of social spiders in the Amazon was recently profiled in Scientific American.
“All of these experiences made me want to contribute more, and with like-minded people, which is why I started Wide Open Projects with my friends. We focus on conservation awareness, coral reef restoration, and community development,” says Fernandez-Fournier.
The coral reef restoration project uses an innovative method of hand-bending metal rebar into dome-like structures and then skillfully attaching bits of coral to it – which, when done correctly, flourishes into a healthy and multi-species coral community.
Wide Open Projects and community partners have created two successful pilot projects, and this past summer built and placed 66 more structures on the ocean floor.
Students in Canada and Indonesia, as well as biology colleagues around the world, are closely following the progress of Fernandez-Fournier and his team via social media.
But Fernandez-Fournier urges students not to feel compelled to follow his path exactly. Instead, he asks them to seek out opportunities that appeal to their own unique interests, whether that be lab work, field ecology, or green policy development. He encourages students to be proactive in seeking out any and all opportunities to volunteer and work with local university professors, NGOs, or other outdoor organizations. “Don’t be afraid to contact people and ask how you can help. Much of what’s needed now is just people willing to show up and do the work.”
He encourages educators to do the same. “Ask grad students and professionals in your community to visit your classroom and talk about their work. Most people, if they have the time, are more than willing to talk about their passion projects.”
“We all need to be bold and face the future proactively.”
Reaching out to potential role models, admittedly, is not always the easiest route and isn’t guaranteed to yield results, which is why many shy away from the idea.
The same is true for students, who worry about being rejected and therefore don’t put in the ask to join field research or volunteer opportunities abroad. They may even withdraw from ecology pursuits entirely, seeking out the road more travelled instead.
But if we learn anything from scientists such as Fernandez-Fournier working on the frontline of environmental challenges, it’s that we all need to be bold and face the future proactively, before allowing these challenges to come to us.
Photos: Philippe Fernandez-Fournier
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
The EcoSchools Program started over 20 years ago, with 11 Toronto schools. EcoSchools Canada is now a national program that offers a range of classroom resources, runs an annual student conference, and certifies schools at three levels.
Inspired by the activism of Greta Thunberg, youth around the world have been taking to the streets to voice their growing fears and anxiety about the climate crisis. Instigated in part by the looming deadline to limit greenhouse gas emissions set by the International Panel on Climate Change’s recent report, students are cutting classes to provoke government action on climate change. In some school boards, educators are incorporating these protests through discussion or attendance as a valuable part of their students’ education, supporting their calls for climate action and justice.
While school strikes are a recent phenomenon, educators and students across Canada have been working on better understanding human impacts on climate change over the past three decades through experiential education, community-based learning, and EcoSchools programming. Integrated into curricula, aligned with local issues, and implemented inside and outside of classrooms, environmental learning is rapidly becoming one of the best ways to keep students engaged in school and simultaneously address the climate crisis. This is evidenced by the continued growth of the EcoSchools Program at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), which engages thousands of children, youth and educators across the city in rich learning about all aspects of the environment. From growing their own food and monitoring energy use, to conducting waste audits and assessing the health of their watersheds, students are leading the way in learning how to address climate change, and moving Canada’s largest school board toward environmental sustainability. At the same time, they are putting the competencies of 21st education – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation – into play as they prepare for one of the most significant challenges of their adult lives.
“Our emerging leaders often share a vision of schools as sustainability hubs, helping community members from all walks of life learn about living in more environmentally friendly ways.”
Motivated by the development of sustainable schools in Europe, the EcoSchools Program was begun in 1998 by forward-thinking program leaders Richard Christie and Eleanor Dudar, well before the Ontario Ministry of Education established its policy framework in Environmental Education in 2009. By focusing on achievable, practical actions such as turning off lights and sorting waste into recycling streams, students and educators were able to demonstrate the environmental and economic benefits associated with this type of learning. The program grew rapidly, from 11 schools in the first year to over 427 schools at its peak; it is currently the largest program of its kind in the country, and one of the biggest in North America.
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In 2005, its certification structure and resources were used to establish the Ontario EcoSchools program, which has flourished over the last decade. Not only are there are now 1,800+ certified EcoSchools across the province, but this non-profit organization has recently become EcoSchools Canada, aiming to nurture the next generation of environmentally attuned citizens and leaders in school communities across the country.
An energetic staff of three run the program, which includes supporting and certifying EcoSchools at the bronze, silver, gold and platinum levels; designing and delivering learning for school EcoTeams; implementing annual student conferences; creating print and online resources; and supporting a range of partnerships with local NGOs.
As the program has expanded, the TDSB has also established a Sustainability Office, which has aligned with a wider range of physical infrastructure measures being put in place to address climate change across the school board, such as establishing outdoor classrooms, mapping and planting trees on school properties, and building high-performance green buildings, like the one at North Toronto Collegiate Institute. The board has been incorporating sustainable energy sources, such as the geothermal energy installed at Highfield Junior School, and the installation of solar panels on over 300 schools. Other boards should take note: the solar panels have generated significant funding for the TDSB’s Environmental Legacy Fund through the sale of carbon credits. This underwrites other sustainability initiatives such as cycling education programs, bike racks, and water bottle refill stations. All of these initiatives have a measurable environmental impact: since 2001, there has been a 22 percent decrease in overall greenhouse gas emissions at the TDSB.
The benefits of the TDSB’s EcoSchools program are manifested in multiple ways, some of which are seen in improved learning experiences for students and their communities. An example of this is found in the rapidly increasing number of schools that have dug deep into environmental learning by creating their own school gardens.
“This natural area has also become a favourite part of the community for students and neighbours alike.”
Supported by a fertile partnership with Evergreen – a nonprofit dedicated to creating healthy urban environments – as well as the expertise of board staff, schools across the board are finding ways to use educational gardening to support the provincial curriculum.
Elementary students at Runnymede Public School planted native shrubs and trees on a hillside behind their urban school as a way to improve the biodiversity of their schoolyard. Twenty years later, they have a lush forest of walnut, maple and oak trees that support a wide variety of insect and wildlife, perfect for enhancing learning activities in science, art, math, and literacy. Not surprisingly, this natural area has also become a favourite part of the community for students and neighbours alike. In contrast, the Grade 6 students at Ryerson Community School have turned their classroom into an indoor garden with the addition of a hydroponic growing tower called a Good Food Machine. As they seed, nurture and harvest the kale, bok choy, tomato and cucumber plants, they learn about their life cycles, as well as how to prepare them as part of a healthy diet. And at Eastdale Collegiate, staff from the TDSB and FoodShare – an organization that works to make fresh, healthy food accessible to all – worked with students to turn a defunct tennis court on the roof into a 16,000 square foot farm. This huge rooftop garden provides hands-on, interdisciplinary learning experiences throughout the school year, connecting with science, business, hospitality and culinary courses. In the summer months, these secondary students are hired to gain important work experience through marketing and selling the fruits and vegetables that they grow on their school roof to nearby restaurants.
The EcoClub at Earl Haig Secondary School takes a very different approach to learning about climate change through its focus on garbage. While many are involved in the school’s waste audit, from the principal to teachers and caretakers, it is the students who lead the process by collecting and sorting the garbage, and then measuring and interpreting the audit results. This sticky, smelly form of learning brings with it groans, laughter, and disgust at the amount and type of waste created, but it also builds comradery and integrates learning in math, literacy and critical thinking to inform the goals for the EcoClub for the year. This immersive investigation could result in helping the school community to better separate out compostable and recyclable items from its garbage heading to landfill; reducing the amount of single-use plastics in the school cafeteria; or increasing understanding of the problems of micro-plastics in the lake. The results of this learning are quantifiable; research has demonstrated that certified EcoSchools generate half as much waste per student per year as do non-certified schools.
Students aren’t the only ones wanting to learn more about the climate crisis; their educators are growing knowledge, skills and expertise as they dedicate evenings, weekends and summer vacations to undertaking professional development to support their students in the EcoSchools program. Through an innovative collaboration with faculty at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), over 200 TDSB educators have taken Additional Qualification courses in Environmental Education over the last six years. These courses model the same experiential, inquiry-based approach that educators are encouraged to use in their classrooms: they learn from and in nature at TDSB outdoor education centres, learn on and from the Land with an Indigenous knowledge-keeper along the banks of the Humber River, and meet with environmental experts like Maude Barlow to study the impact of pollution on Lake Ontario. Most importantly, these educators share their promising practices in environmental learning with each other through discussions, presentations, and digital resources that are also shared with other educators across the school board. Those who finish this set of courses become members of the TDSB’s Action Research Team, which supports educators to conduct research into Environmental Education in their classrooms, alongside their students. This team also works with teacher candidates from OISE’s teacher education programs to ensure that the next generation of teachers comes into classrooms prepared to lead learning about climate change from the start of their careers.
Many positive steps have been taken by students and staff alike in addressing climate change and environmental issues over the last two decades at the TDSB, but the EcoSchools Program continues to encounter challenges as it does this important work. For program staff, getting thousands of educators, staff and parents from 575 schools on the same page about the importance of environmental learning is a work in progress, and makes for an intensive workload. It is still common for some educators to find themselves identified as the “ecochampions” of their school, not only modelling this work for their students, but also taking full responsibility for the EcoClub and the paperwork associated with the EcoSchools certification process. If this educator or principal moves to another school, it can take time to find another prepared to champion this work. Maintaining supports, both administrative and financial, are always an ongoing concern, as seen with the recent cutbacks by the Ontario Ministry of Education; cutting budgets has a direct impact on educators’ time and energy in leading this critical work.
Yet those involved in the TDSB’s EcoSchools Program are finding ways to make it happen. One way is by establishing and maintaining networks of professional learning, such as the one established with OISE; this provides ongoing support and development by those who understand the problems and solutions inherent to the EcoSchools program. Another is by nurturing “green leadership,” bringing together students, educators, administrators and parents who prioritize environmental learning and climate action in schools to ensure that the curriculum in the 21st century is rooted in real-world experiences. These emerging leaders often share a vision of schools as sustainability hubs, helping community members from all walks of life learn about living in more environmentally friendly ways.
School strikes are certainly one way to advocate for climate action, and perhaps a necessary one for capturing government attention. But the EcoSchools Program at the TDSB provides an alternative and successful model that keeps students in school, builds 21st learning competencies, and shows them how to become effective champions for sustainability in their own communities.
Join a network of over 50,000 schools around the world working to create a sustainable future.
EcoSchools Canada’s curriculum-linked certification framework supports student-led action that leads to tangible impacts throughout the school community.
Visit ecoschools.ca to learn about how you can get involved and become a certified EcoSchool.
Original photos: courtesy of the TDSB Sustainability Office
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
When maker-centered, community-based learning meets the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the resulting projects can be deeply meaningful to the students who created them. See how Brilliant Labs in New Brunswick supports students’ “hopeful action to build a better world.”
Young people can have tremendous agency and voice in influencing solutions to community problems if we ignite their creativity with a socially responsible mindset, and equip them with the entrepreneurial and digital skills necessary to leverage tomorrow’s technology.
With young people today becoming increasingly troubled and anxious with climate change, environmental degradation, social inequality, and other challenges impacting our world, it is important that we support student-driven projects that engage with these issues.
In doing so, we also acknowledge their personal autonomy and identity.
What if we approached this by challenging our students to take a good look at their world and have them ask: What does my world look like? Is my world missing anything? How can I be a changemaker, innovator and leader? What can I do now that will lead to meaningful changes tomorrow? We can inspire bold new thinking by students and give them a time and place to exercise their creative problem-solving, with innovative use of materials and digital technology-related skills.
Over the past five years, Brilliant Labs has engaged youth in more than 401,862 learning experiences that inspire and empower them to make an impact by addressing the urgent needs in their school and community. This impact has been, literally, made by applying the instructional philosophy of maker-centred learning, in which students are invited to create meaningful artifacts of their own knowledge, interests, and passions.
We provide students with agency and a supportive learning environment where they are encouraged to integrate new techniques and technologies with familiar materials, all while constructing authentic solutions to problems they identified in their own communities. The prototypes they develop often become incredibly viable solutions to addressing our society’s most intimidating problems.
In partnership with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in all four Atlantic Canadian provinces, Brilliant Labs has worked with tens of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of students in support of a maker-centered learning approach that fosters hands-on, experiential, and inquiry- and project-based learning in classrooms throughout Atlantic Canada.
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals – also referred to as the SDGs or the Global Goals – were adopted by Canada and 192 other members states of the UN in 2015.
The SDGs universally apply to all countries, and cover a wide range of sustainability issues intended to build a better world for people everywhere and the planet. All the countries agreed to implement the SDGs within their own country in order to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
By highlighting local, national and international priority areas, the SDGs strive to end all forms of poverty, improve health and education, fight inequalities, make cities more sustainable, and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left at a disadvantage.
Converging student-driven projects with the SDGs not only educates and engages them to support the Global Goals in real and meaningful ways, it also empowers them to transform that support into hopeful action to build a better world and contribute to Canada achieving its 2030 Agenda.
One framework that is particularly helpful when encouraging projects that address environmental sustainability is design thinking (see Figure 1). Popularized by the Stanford School of Design, design thinking can be used by students and teachers as an instructional methodology that brings some order to what can become a chaotic cycle of multiple iterations of their project throughout their design process. While Brilliant Labs provides support for students as they work through each component of the design and making process, it has been the empathize component of design thinking that has been most helpful in creating a culture of localized environmental literacy.
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There are many interpretations of the design process, and it is important to remember that conforming your instructional practice to any framework that is not your own may constrain the creative actions makers take as they move through the iterative process and construct a prototype.
For this reason, we have developed our own interpretation of the Design Thinking Process entitled “The [blank] process of making brilliant things.” We hope that inserting a personalized name into the title will inspire a sense of personal agency in whatever process teachers and their students choose to bring their constructions to life.
It is enormously meaningful to understand the culture of your community, your own identity and the identity of your audience prior to jumping into any prototyping. This way your process will be refined to the needs of your end-users in your target community.
Specifically, what is it that you will make?
It is important to know how your desire to make relates to the empathy you express for your community.
The definition of what you wish to make should be specific so that you can clearly communicate your intent with those same community members, for whom your project is intended.
This component of the process is where your imagination will run wild.
To ideate means to imagine all of the possible implications and functions of your project.
Brainstorming outside of the definition of your project or the time you have allotted for your project during the ideate phase will ultimately lead you to an exciting project design that leads you to keep asking. “What if…?” We encourage this unbridled ideation!
However, it can be valuable to have one group member recognize when the ideas fall too far outside your definition to keep you on track.
This is where you begin to make your ideas come to life.
Turn sketches into diagrams, with multiple views and precise measurements.
Discuss your ideas and design decisions with your intended community of end-users.
Live within the ambiguous constraints of low-cost construction materials like cardboard.
Embrace each prototype for the reflective opportunity its disposable nature provides.
Finally, never underestimate the value of any prototype. Time has a way of getting away from the best of us. Be proud of each of your prototypes.
This phase may be at the end of the diagram, but in the design thinking and making process there is never an end – it is recursive, iterative, and ever-changing.
The testing phase is similar to deployment. Take your current prototype, demonstrate it to multiple groups of end-users, take notes, discuss the user experience and decide whether you want to cycle back to an earlier phase of your process (the answer is often yes).
Atlantic Canadian youth are truly empathetic to their local community’s sustainability challenges and their resulting projects inevitably become projected onto the larger challenges framed by the SDGs and Canada’s 2030 Agenda. For instance, a middle-school classroom decided to join a local campaign to solve their city’s hunger and nutrition issues. This group of students were not only interested in positively contributing to the food available to the hungry but to ensuring that this vulnerable group had access to healthy, locally grown produce. After days of brainstorming, these Grade 8 students decided to build a series of hydroponic flood tables to grow as much lettuce as possible in their school.
The students continually refined their design to maximize the growth as well as their contribution. Brilliant Labs became involved in this project when one student who was particularly interested in chemistry, gardening and coding, requested our assistance in developing an autonomous, electronic system that adjusted the pH of the nutrient-rich solution that became the essential component to maximizing their lettuce growth.
Integrating students’ projects with the SDGs localizes them in their community to make them real. This framework also provides engaging and creative opportunities to further cement student learning about how their local position can relate to one much larger: both globally and for their own learning.
When constructing projects that consider sustainability, students often authentically express a number of SDGs, as well as global competencies that are critical to establishing themselves as life-long learners.
The pan-Canadian global competencies outlined by Council of Ministers of Education, Canada are:
Examples of this in Atlantic Canada include students at all levels:
Students in an Environmental Studies class at Fredericton High School developed a project in support of SDG Goals 15 (Life on Land), 14 (Life Under Water), and 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). While learning about wetland ecosystems at Corbett Brook Marsh (a 3.64-hectare forested wetland), they combined drones, microcontrollers, 3D design and printing, robotics, and coding to collect water samples in a hard-to-reach wetland without further damaging the local ecosystem. The student-created prototype featured two detachable platforms that carried four test tubes and a sensor. When the drone came within 10 cm of the water surface, it automatically triggered a robotic mechanism that filled the test tubes with water.
The project was a success, tying for first place at the Regional Science Fair at the University of New Brunswick and also catching the attention of local conservation and technology communities. Ducks Unlimited Canada purchased a new drone for the school, with funding from the New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund. The project not only far exceeded everyone’s expectations, it provided a creative, problem-solving opportunity for students to learn how to apply their unique interests, skills and talents in a meaningful way.
As students work to provide sustainable and environmentally responsible solutions within their schools and communities, we have a tremendous opportunity to engage them with the UN SDGs to develop their global competencies and support Canada’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Connecting students with projects and purposeful technology in an authentic and impactful context not only sparks learning through action, but will go along way to creating innovative solutions to complex and urgent problems, and develop a growth mindset.
Brilliant Labs is looking forward to continuing to support students, teachers and educators along this journey as we engage our young people to boldly solve real problems with innovative technologies. Our youth are the biggest and brightest hope to improve the lives of people everywhere and transform the world by learning about the SDGs and mobilizing Canada’s 2030 Agenda.
Formed in 2014, Brilliant Labs is a not-for-profit, hands-on technology and experiential learning platform based in Atlantic Canada.
In converging student-driven projects with the SDGs, our vision is to provide every child in Atlantic Canada, and beyond, with the opportunities to access, learn, and leverage new technologies and programming to create, innovate and inspire solutions for a sustainable and environmentally, socially, and entrepreneurially responsible future.
Photo: Courtesy Brilliant Labs
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
When I visited a high school recently as a guest speaker, I was surprised by how quiet I found the crowd of students in the entrance foyer.
There must have been a hundred students, but rather than the noisy, chatty hallway I was expecting, they barely seemed to speak at all.
Instead they were looking down, apparently completely absorbed, at the phones in their hands.
When I remarked to the principal who greeted me how odd I found it that the students didn’t talk with each other, she explained I was mistaken. They were talking. On their phones. They were texting. Or Snapchatting. Or WhatsApping – or some variation of these.
“Convincing students to unplug and get outside? That can be challenging.”
I’d been invited as a speaker to motivate kids to “unplug” and get excited about nature. I could see I had my work cut out for me. I’m a professional adventurer, the Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
Normally, I’m out in the wild, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest other person, in some of the most isolated places on Earth. I get to spend months out of the year unplugged. If that’s your idea of paradise, then we think alike.
My days are pretty simple: ploughing through arctic ice floes in a canoe, sleeping alone with polar bears, paddling across lakes that stretch beyond the horizon, trekking in places where there are no trails, coming face-to-face with wolves and muskox, and wandering across ancient lava flows. Pretty relaxing stuff. But convincing students to unplug and get outside? That can be challenging.
According to a recent report, “Kids and teens age eight to 18 spend an average of more than seven hours a day looking at screens.”1
That data was from a study in the U.S., but there is little reason to think the numbers are any different here in Canada. Researchers have linked excessive screen time to increased anxiety, stress, difficulty concentrating, unhappiness, and other unhealthy outcomes.
The American author Richard Louv has even coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” to refer to the growing trend of kids (and adults) spending too much time indoors.
It turns out that a steady stream of social media, emails, online content, video games, and binge-watching shows, does not lead to a well-balanced, healthy life. (Which is not to say any of these things are bad in moderation.)
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When I cast a glance back at my own childhood and education, I count myself lucky. I happened to grow up with a forest on my doorstep. We lived on a country road without streetlights or sidewalks. My playground was the woods that surrounded our home on all sides. Out there, among the oaks and sycamores, the birch and basswoods, I learned about plants, tracks, birds and other animals. I developed a deep love for forests, nature, and the wild that has never left me.
But I was also lucky that my interest and enthusiasm for the natural world was nurtured and encouraged by the Ontario public school curriculum and the teachers I had.
In elementary school, we gathered leaves from our schoolyard and made rubbings of them, identifying the different species. Nearby was a conservation area where we learned orienteering and played predator-prey games about the food chain and web of life.
I vividly recall learning about environmental issues in my Grade 3 class from Mr. Sibley, and how alarmed I was at the thought of forests disappearing.
In Grade 4, our class did projects on endangered species (I chose the wolverine).
In Grade 6, my teacher, Mrs. Stock, had our class do projects on an individual tree species. I did mine on tulip trees – towering giants found in the Carolinian forests of southernmost Ontario.
I still have my Grade 7 project on “Canadian woodlands,” where I studied different types of forests in Canada and what makes each unique. For that project, I was able to do research in my own backyard.
We had many other projects involving nature and field trips to nearby nature parks. All of this helped encourage my appetite for the outdoors.
Now when I write about my expeditions in my books, I try to re-awaken people’s dormant sense of awe and delight at the mysteries and magic of the natural world, in the belief that doing so will inspire people to want to know more about the outdoors and then get active in working to preserve and restore natural habitats.
That’s why I write about trekking alone through ancient forests of spruces and tamaracks, or meeting arctic wolves that look you in the eye, or wandering over weathered rocks that were already a billion years old before the first dinosaur ever walked the earth.
At schools, I entertain students with tales of adventures in the wild, of sleeping under stars, of mapping northern rivers that snake across the land like giant anacondas, and of meeting bears and wolverines.
Once I’ve stirred up a suitable sense of awe at the wild and eagerness to experience the great outdoors among screen-addicted students through adventure stories, my next step is to give them the mental tools they need to experience nature for themselves in an exciting way, in their own backyard or local conservation area.
I think there’s a two-pronged approach that can do wonders to accomplish this in schools.
The first is teaching more nature in the classroom – things like leaf rubbings and tree identification, and plant and animal ecology.
The second is getting students outside more in the woods or wetlands. The crucial part is that these things need to be combined.
A common mistake is only emphasizing one element, instead of both together. But just sending people out into the woods without any knowledge of how to interpret them is like assigning Shakespeare without first learning to read. On the flip side, learning about nature only indoors is like studying music theory without the music.
So I place a lot of emphasis on both classroom learning and getting outdoors.
For students, I like to begin with a focus on things that are immediately at hand and almost always visible – trees and birds.
These are nature’s ABCs – the fundamental building blocks that will let anyone begin to “read” the woods. But then we go beyond just tree identification, to figuring out more about the character of each tree. How old is it? What are its traditional uses? How does the wood compare? Soft basswood is a wonder for carving, while hop-hornbeam is rock-hard. Why did that tree grow in a particular way? We compare the big spreading branches of the white oaks to the wiry understory witch hazels. Why do silver maples grow in swamps? Hemlocks in shady ravines?
Then, suddenly, those generic trees around the schoolyard aren’t just “trees” anymore – they’re red oaks, white pines, and sugar maples. They begin to tell a story – the story of the natural world.
“It’s not only that we need nature. Nature needs us. Now more than ever, the natural world is under tremendous pressure.”
The other thing I like to focus on at first are birds. Birds, like trees, are almost always around – even in urban settings – and since many are migratory, they connect us immediately to faraway places, from the warblers that spend their winters in the Amazon to the snow geese that in summer migrate to the Arctic.
Like the trees, each bird has a story to tell. As we learn about them, gradually the birds flying by or singing in the cedars aren’t just catch-all “birds” anymore.
To borrow a digital metaphor, now the picture starts to come into High Definition, and we can make out white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, gray jays, tufted titmice or black-capped chickadees.
The more we learn, the sharper the focus gets as the natural world becomes more and more intelligible, and ever more fascinating.
Long after I left school, I’m still learning about nature. My expeditions for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society have taken me everywhere from exploring caves in the Arctic, to gathering marine fossils along isolated rivers, to tracking down and photographing Canada’s most elusive snake, the endangered blue racer. Currently I’m preparing for a new four-month solo canoe journey, in part to be based on following bird migration routes. When I return, I’ll have new material to share with the schools I visit.
There’s another reason why I think it’s critical we re-awaken our sense of awe for the wild.
It’s not only that we need nature. Nature needs us.
Now more than ever, the natural world is under tremendous pressure.
A landmark UN report last year laid out in stark detail the grave loss of biodiversity directly from human actions – chief among them habitat loss. The UN report’s key conclusion was that humans now threaten over one million species with extinction. The report found that over 100 million hectares of tropical forest were lost between 1980 and 2000 alone. Even more severe was the disappearance of wetlands: an estimated 87 percent of the world’s wetlands are already gone. All of this habitat destruction is driving sky-rocketing rates of extinction.
That’s why I think it is so critical we reconnect with nature – not only for our own well-being, to live healthy, balanced lives, but for the fate of the plants and animals we share our world with.
The first step is learning to care more about the wild all around us. In doing so, we’re not only helping students lead healthier, more balanced lives; we’re planting the seeds for a greener tomorrow.
Photo: Adam Shoalts
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
Note
1 Victoria Rideout and Michael B. Robb, The Common Sense Census: Media use by tweens and teens (San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media, 2019).
How a 12-day placement in a local Indigenous community gives teacher candidates a chance “to develop the knowledge, motivation, and skills to facilitate the transmission of an environmental consciousness to their future students… and to establish inclusive learning spaces by being better able to teach to and about Indigenous people.”
My dad taught me about the land. We were a hunting, gathering, and fishing family, so we were always on the land harvesting food. I have many wonderful memories: fishing; snaring rabbit; partridge hunting; and picking apples, berries, fiddleheads, chokecherries, puff balls, leeks and mushrooms.
Picking mushrooms requires particular knowledge and skill because some mushrooms are dangerous. After a day picking mushrooms my dad would fry them with onions and serve them with venison steaks or chops.
Invariably at the dinner table, my brother, sister, or I would ask our Dad, “How do we know these aren’t the poison ones?” to which he would reply, “Well, if you wake up in the morning, then I know they weren’t poisonous.” While his response provided a small degree of worry, my siblings and I found it funny because we had trust in his knowledge. I acknowledge that my love of the land definitely comes from my father.
When a gap needs to be filled, you fill it. This is a common experience for me as an Indigenous educator (Anishinaabe – Bear Clan from Kitigan Zibi First Nation) trying to fill the gap in Indigenous education.
I teach in the School of Education at Trent University and have had numerous Bachelor of Education students approach me inquiring about including Indigenous knowledge into their curriculum plans. They came knocking on my office door with requests such as, “My associate teacher is asking me to teach the Grade 6 unit on First Nations Peoples and European Explorers in my practicum, and I have no idea where to start,” or “My practicum is in a secondary school English class, what Indigenous texts could I explore with my students?”
These teacher candidates identified a gap in their knowledge and skill regarding inclusionary practice, yet had the desire and fortitude to ensure their teaching would be inclusive of Indigenous students and promote healthy cross-cultural sharing.
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I had enough of these requests to identify a need for an explicit learning opportunity toward the goal of educating teacher candidates about Indigenous people and how to teach Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students about Indigenous people. Since all teacher candidates in the School of Education at Trent University are required to find a site for an alternative learning opportunity for three weeks or 75 hours, I felt this would be an opportune timeframe for an in-depth learning opportunity.
Since the worldview of Indigenous peoples is connected to the environment, and since there is a global/universal need for all students to learn about the state of the planet, I felt a land-based program would serve the dual purpose of learning about Indigenous people while instilling an ecological consciousness in teacher candidates, and ultimately their future students. I also knew that I could take my students the furthest in the shortest amount of time teaching on, and with, the land. The Learning From the Land and Indigenous People alternative settings placement was born in 2007 and has been delivered every spring since then.
Teacher candidates spend twelve days with me in my home community of Burleigh Falls and Lovesick Lake in the Kawartha Lakes to experience land-based activities in order to develop a personal connection to the environment and an awareness of Indigenous, specifically Anishinaabe, culture.
The placement offers teacher candidates a chance to develop the knowledge, motivation, and skills to facilitate the transmission of an environmental consciousness to their future students. Additionally, the placement assists teacher candidates in establishing inclusive learning spaces by being better able to teach to and about Indigenous people. It is my hope that teacher candidates develop themselves personally and professionally while increasing their cultural capacity to teach Indigenous and environmental education.
Learning activities on the placement include: a medicine walk, fishing, tracking/bush work, harvesting, canoeing, shelter building, a “solo” (period spent sitting alone in nature), observation and survival skills, a daily morning circle, sharing circles, traditional teachings, traditional land-based practices, storytelling, eating collectively, field trips to local Indigenous sites, drumming and dancing, and environmental learning activities that are transferable to the classroom.
“These future teachers clearly state that they are better prepared to teach about Indigenous people and teach Indigenous children.”
Through an intensive evaluation process, including daily student reflections and a pre/post-evaluation questionnaire, teacher candidates indicate that the Learning From the Land and Indigenous People placement is immensely enjoyed and valued as a learning experience. Many define the placement as the highlight of their teacher education program: “This was the best part of my year.” Another teacher candidate says: “Truly this has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I really feel changed and in such a positive way.”
These future teachers clearly state that they are better prepared to teach about Indigenous people and teach Indigenous children – “I now have new skills so that I can teach about Anishinaabe and First Nations peoples to my classes in a respectful and engaging way. I feel that I am also better prepared to teach Indigenous students.” Perhaps the experience can be summed up by this teacher candidate: “I came away with a better understanding of Anishinaabe culture as well as a new yet familiar approach to teaching and learning. This was a rich experience – a lot was accomplished in a short time. I feel full of possibility with respect to future teaching. I also feel connected with local Anishinaabe culture and the land.”
The Learning From the Land and Indigenous People alternative settings placement is transformational and self-actualizing education that occurs through teaching holistically by engaging all four aspects of who students are as human beings. That means teaching to students’ mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual capacities.
“An opportunity to learn about Indigenous people through the land and to move through the 4Rs: respect, relationship, reciprocity, responsibility.”
All education, including environmental sustainability education, must engage all four parts of our beings: our minds, our bodies, our hearts, and our spirits. While it may seem easy to envision how we could engage the mind, the heart, and the body, it is somewhat more difficult to envision how we could engage the spirit or the soul. Talking about spirituality in education can cause tension because some equate it with religion. From an Indigenous perspective, spirituality has nothing to do with religion. Spirituality is about knowing, feeling, and acting like we are connected to the natural world. It is a spirit-to-spirit connection and it is accessible to everyone regardless of religion because we all share this same natural world, this one planet. It is not about religion; it is recognizing that we only exist because of the life-givers that provide us with everything that we need. The life-givers are the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the sun that provides light and heat, and the earth that provides us with the food that we eat. We all need those things, and that is universal.
Spirituality is also about being humble enough to acknowledge that humans are the most insignificant beings on this planet, because we cannot live without the life-givers that are provided for us – yet the life-givers can exist without us, and perhaps the planet might be all the better. The earth does not need us, but we need the earth. This humility allows us to understand and respect our connection to, and dependence on, everything else.
In the Learning From the Land and Indigenous People alternative settings placement, teacher candidates have the opportunity to learn about Indigenous people through the land and to move through the 4Rs: respect, relationship, reciprocity, responsibility.
Respecting the land requires re-spect, looking again, at all that the natural world provides; seeing ourselves as inextricably linked, and thus in relationship, with the natural world; engaging with the natural world in reciprocal and balanced ways; and acting with responsibility, or response-ability, to ensure respect, relationship, and reciprocity.
To live life in a spiritual way is to live respectfully in reciprocal relationships that result in taking responsibility.
The Learning From the Land and Indigenous People alternative settings placement engages this spirituality with teacher candidates, with the hope that they will teach to their students’ spirits, resulting in spiritual connections to creation and the natural world.
I encourage all educators to consider how they can instil and foster a spiritual connection in environmental education through land-based learning.
This will shape the future.
Photo: Rich McPherson
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
Concrete, effective action is required to effectively address the climate change emergency. How can the education sector reduce our ecological footprint? The author offers a plan with strategic actions for schools and school districts.
The problem of climate change is a collective challenge of immeasurable scope.
To respond effectively, each and every organization will have to formulate and implement a concrete action plan in order to significantly reduce its ecological footprint within a very short timeframe.
In this context, the sector of public education, whose primary mission is to support and prepare youth for the future, must lead the way and become a model of sustainable practice.
This pressing issue is already under discussion in several school districts across the country, some having already declared a climate emergency (e.g. Vancouver, Victoria, etc.), and others likely to join them shortly.
That said, such declarations are only useful when followed by an effective and realistic action plan.
Therefore, this article aims to provide organizations such as schools and school boards with a simple plan that includes a list of strategic actions in order to significantly reduce their ecological footprint in a timely manner.
“We must take action as quickly and as effectively as possible.”
The primary goal of the proposed plan – reducing a school district’s ecological footprint by at least 50 percent by 2030 – sets a clear target and definite timeline that aligns with the most recent Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change recommendations (2018).
As for possible sectors for action, the situation may vary from school to school and from community to community, but in the majority of cases, food, transport, land use and waste management are likely to be the most important sources of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
Some of these actions may require extra funding (e.g. transitioning to electric school buses), some can be implemented with current resources (e.g. reviewing cafeteria menus to decrease animal product use by at least 50 percent).
Again, the necessary logistic and financial details may vary from district to district, but the key factor to make this plan reality is to create the necessary mobilization from within. Only then will the so-called climate emergency be prioritized as a true emergency.
Indeed, according to Michael Fullan’s research, successful organizational change implies an evolution of an organization’s culture and not just the restructuring of activities.
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In this case, it seems that our students have already taken the lead, creating momentum with the movement Fridays for Future.
At this point, schools must not fail them – we must take action as quickly and as effectively as possible. Everyone involved – principals, teachers, support staff, parents, school and school board administrators – can all do their share to bring these ideas forward and endorse this simple yet concrete plan to help create the necessary changes.
Figure 1: Climate Action Plan for Schools and School Districts
Photos: iStock
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
How – and what – are we doing with climate change education? Lakehead University and Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) surveyed over 1,000 teachers to understand current climate change education teaching practice in Canada.
Climate change is the most complex and wide-reaching challenge facing humankind today. Reducing the impacts of climate change and moving Canada toward resilience and adaptability for climate impacts will require substantial changes at all levels of Canadian society. It is critical that Canadians understand climate change causes, impacts and risks. An educated public, including youth, is essential to driving the required transformation.
Lakehead University and Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) completed a comprehensive survey of 3,196 Canadians to establish Canada-wide baseline data reflecting Canadians’ knowledge and understanding of climate change, perspectives on risks, and views on the role of schools and climate change education. The survey also provides a nationally unprecedented report of climate change education teaching practice.
The survey collected responses from 1,231 teachers (from across K-12 grades), 571 parents, 486 students in Grades 7-12, and the general public (908).1 The final report, Canada, Climate Change and Education: Opportunities for public and formal education, is publicly available.
The majority of Canadians are certain that climate change is happening (85%), are concerned about the impacts of climate change (79%), and believe there are risks to people in Canada (78%).
While there is a high level of concern, only 51% of Canadians feel well-informed about climate change, and 86% indicated that they need more information about it. Further, a basic knowledge test on general climate science, causes, and impacts in Canada, revealed a gap between Canadians’ understanding of climate change and their perceptions of their knowledge. Many did poorly on the test questions, but thought they did well. Close to half (43%) of Canadians failed this basic knowledge test, and only 14% correctly answered at least eight of its ten questions.
This gap between Canadians’ high level of concern about climate change and their level of knowledge signifies a critical learning moment for both public and formal education.
The majority (68%) of all respondents agreed that it is the role of schools to educate students about climate change. Two-thirds of Canadians and three-quarters of teachers believe schools should be doing more to educate students about climate change.
Opinions on the priority that climate change education should have in schools differ across the country. Quebec (69%) and British Columbia (66%) had the highest percentage of respondents who saw climate change as a high priority for schooling, while in Saskatchewan only about one-third of respondents agree that it is a high priority.
When respondents were asked what the school system should do more of, the most common answers were to increase focus on climate change impacts and to explore more ways to take collective action.
Within the survey, teachers were asked a series of questions to develop a baseline of climate change education practices in Canada.
Little time for climate change: Between 35% and 59%2 of teachers reported teaching climate change in the classroom. For teachers who do include climate change content, most teach 1-10 hours per year or semester.
Support for integrated climate change education: When it is taught, climate change content is predominantly taught in Science followed by Social Studies, but over 75% of teachers believe that climate change education is the role of all teachers.
Best practice for teaching climate change: The majority of teachers believe that climate change education provides opportunities to discuss social justice and world issues with students (87%), that it should encourage students to think about their own beliefs and values (82%), and that it should focus on developing students’ capacity to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers (83%). Most teachers also showed support for climate change education to focus on behavioural change (76%). These findings suggest that the majority of Canadian teachers’ professional views on climate change education support best practice,focused on critical thinking and action-oriented learning.
However, some teachers are out of step with best practices when it comes to debating the cause of climate change: About one-third (31-38%) of educators reported that they encourage, or would encourage, students to debate the likely causes of climate change or to come to their own conclusions. There is a strong scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused. This consensus should be taught.
Challenges: Only one-third to one-half (32 -55%) of teachers indicated that they feel they have the knowledge and skills to teach about climate change. According to teachers, the top barriers for integrating climate change education into classrooms (see Figure 2) are:
Teachers said they need classroom resources, professional development, current information on climate science, enhanced curriculum policy, information on the economics and politics of climate change, and national/provincial climate data.
Almost half of students (46%) understand that climate change is human caused, but don’t believe that human actions in mitigation will be effective. This mindset is concerning when considering how it may affect youth in terms of how they frame their future quality of life, opportunities, or possibilities. It is critically important, therefore, to target this group with climate change education that is action- and solutions-oriented to combat eco-anxiety and hopelessness.
Children and youth under 18 will bear the impacts of climate disruption in the 21st century. The climate strike movement started by Greta Thunberg3 is a symbol of the concern that young people have for their futures and a clarion call to adults to remember the moral obligation they have to children and youth. Youth need to be engaged in climate change education during schooling and need to see adults acting collectively to tackle the climate crisis.
Canada’s commitment as a signatory to the Paris Climate Change Agreement includes a call “to enhance climate change education.”4
All Canadians need more information about climate change from trusted sources, including scientists and academics. The focus should be on correcting misconceptions about climate change and improving public understanding of its primary causes, as well as enabling citizens to understand the need for, and the need to advocate for, mitigation strategies such as greenhouse gas reduction policies. Lastly, public education should provide Canadians with information on high-impact personal climate actions that they can integrate into their daily lives.
While some of this needs to come from informal education, the formal education system has a major role to play, and there is evidence that education has a pass-through-effect to parents when students are educated about climate change.5
Provincial policy: Without clear policies at the provincial level, climate change education is left to the competence, dedication and enthusiasm of individual teachers. A more comprehensive approach is needed. Ministries of Education should embed core climate change expectations across subjects and release policy statements guiding climate change education for each regional jurisdiction.
Professional development: School boards should provide opportunities for teachers to enhance their knowledge, tools, and strategies for teaching about climate change, and provide teachers with current provincial/national data and resources. Faculties of Education should also include climate change education across subjects in initial teacher education to help prepare teachers entering the field.
Teachers can start now: Teachers don’t have to wait for ministries or school boards to enact these changes to start integrating climate change education into their classrooms.
“Youth need to be engaged in climate change education during schooling and need to see adults acting collectively to tackle the climate crisis.”
The climate emergency is a critical learning opportunity. The nature of this complex problem requires deep learning that not only expands people’s knowledge and understanding about climate change, but also touches their values, sense of place and feelings of responsibility. Information alone may have limited impact; 40 years of climate science and public education has not resulted in the required societal changes.
Climate change education demands a multi-pronged approach that directly addresses predominant misconceptions and also facilitates critical questioning of societal norms and cultural drivers, such as: the definition of progress; the idea of perpetual growth on a finite planet; the roles of science and technology; the viability of capitalism, consumerism, and the exploitation of nature; and values such as “freedom,” “independence,” “success,” and “comfort.” Climate change, therefore, requires an integrated and transdisciplinary approach that includes systems perspectives, spans from local to global, cultivates respectful ways of approaching contested positions (such as deliberative dialogue), and develops capacity and collective action – all approaches that are transferable to supporting students’ development in other areas.
The emotional dimension of climate change and student well-being must be directly addressed, given the dire nature of current and predicted consequences of inaction. Discussion of climate change can lead to feelings of fear and anxiety and cause students and adults to distance themselves from the problem or disengage from, doubt or dismiss it. Climate change learning in the classroom needs to attend, and respond, to the psychological fallout that occurs as one learns about the severity and urgency of the issue.
A first step in mitigating fear responses is to create a culture of trust in the classroom where emotions are honoured and students are supported through knowledge-building processes. An inquiry-learning framework honours students’ past experiences and perspectives and puts students at the centre of their own learning. By framing students’ learning processes as solutionary and action-oriented, students can feel empowered to work toward a goal rather than feeling overwhelmed or hopeless.
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For many teachers, “having hope” is a complicated discussion, a balance between remaining credible and honest with students and being transparent about the latest scientific reports and what our collective inaction in the face of these reports suggests. Understanding developmental readiness and a learning progression for climate change education is necessary for teachers to gauge student readiness. A powerful starting point at any age is active-hope, where having hope is framed as an intention rather than tied to chances of an outcome.6 It is from a position of active-hope that ideas and projects are created that push forward the prospect of a hopeful future.
By Pamela Schwartzberg and Samantha Gawron, Learning for a Sustainable Future
Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) has had the privilege over the years of working alongside some outstanding educators as they tackled climate change issues with their students through action projects that provide invaluable learning opportunities while creating positive impacts. These are just some of their stories.
Students were asked to research the 100 solutions to climate change on the Drawdown website (www.drawdown.org), which identifies the most viable solutions to climate change, and then they chose one that they thought was viable at the family level that they could encourage others to adopt. They researched the cost required to implement, and then concluded if the solution was/was not viable for them and/or the average family. Students created a video, slideshow, infographic, or newspaper article outlining the actual costs and challenges of implementing the solution. They were quite excited to learn that there are things that can be done by individuals to create change.
After observing how their local forests, green spaces and wildlife are impacted by the waste generated by their community, student leaders at Corner Brook Intermediate School were inspired to implement their school’s first recycling program. This allowed them to properly collect and sort items like paper and plastic from their school and divert them from landfill. To spread awareness of the new program and the reasons behind it, the students developed virtual reality (VR) lessons in both English and French. They applied for an EcoLeague grant from LSF to purchase a class set of VR headsets, and they delivered their lesson plans to over 600 students in Grades 7-9! The lessons guided students through learning more about climate change and waste and understanding how their actions can have a big impact.
The high school Eco-Committee at St. Mary’s Academy is committed to educating their entire K-12 school about solar energy. They have a long-term goal of converting St. Mary’s into a clean-energy school. This year, they began by educating their peers (and themselves) about solar energy and the function of solar panels. They visited other schools that had already installed solar panels, interviewed their local power generation company, and toured local solar panel providers. They also partnered with “3% Project” to learn about cost-efficiency and cost-impact analysis to strengthen their case. To start their project on a small scale, they purchased and installed solar panels in their school greenhouse and designed a self-watering system using a rain barrel and a timer. With their research, learning, educating and experimenting this year, they’re now ready to take on their whole-school solar vision!
Students at Seven Oaks Met School have engaged in many sustainability Action Projects over the years, including their hugely successful Strut for Shoal event that raised over $7,000 for the Shoal Lake 40 First Nation community’s water treatment fund. More recently, the students are spearheading a campaign to convince the Seven Oaks School Division to be the first in Manitoba to declare a climate emergency. In meetings with the Division, students brought up the issues that matter most to them, including climate change and emissions reduction, Indigenous rights, school waste management, biodiversity preservation, and more. They say the Division must declare a climate emergency in order to effectively put these recommendations into action in schools. Seven Oaks Met School students have rallied peers from six other schools to their cause, urging their division to follow the lead of boards in north Vancouver, Victoria and Sudbury that have already made climate emergency declarations. After the school division makes their decision, students have plans to meet with the mayor of Winnipeg and the Premier of Manitoba to expand the declaration and awareness of the climate emergency.
E.A.R.T.H. club members at E.L. Crossley hoped to inform their fellow students about the positive impacts a plant-based diet can have on the future of our planet. Students organized a week of veggie-friendly events organized and run entirely by youth, for youth, with the support of various local community partners. Their inaugural VegFest took place in the spring of 2016. The week’s events included a vegan cooking class with a local chef, a screening of the documentary Cowspiracy, a smoothie day, vegan salad bar extravaganza, cafeteria games, and a vendor day. VegFest received an overwhelmingly positive response and high levels of student participation each day. The students have run a successful VegFest every year since, and hope the project will continue in the future!
Grade 7-9 students began their garden initiative with three hydroponic gardens that allow them to garden all year long. In order to inspire other students to grow their own food and have access to healthy produce, the students designed and planted an outdoor garden accessible to the entire community. Students planted corn, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. They did taste tests to see the difference between locally grown produce and what is sold in the stores. They got their peers excited about local and healthy eating and working together as a community for a common purpose. In the fall the produce will be donated to the local food bank. They hope that their outdoor garden will inspire other families to grow their own gardens with their children in the future.
Learning for a Sustainable Future, a national charity whose mission is to integrate sustainability education into the Canadian school system, has worked for over two decades to support teachers with professional development and high-quality resources. http://lsf-lst.ca
All Photos: courtesy Learning for a Sustainable Future
First published in Education Canada, March 2020
1 Refer to report for full methodology: Ellen Field, Pamela Schwartzberg, and Paul Berger, Canada, Climate Change, and Education: Opportunities for public and formal education (2019). http://lsf-lst.ca/en/cc-survey
2 Reported ranges in this section are due to use of two sampling methods for teachers. Refer to full report (Fig. 73 and Fig. 75) for explanation and details.
3 Greta Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future” strike movement mobilized an estimated 1.4 million students in 112 countries in March 2019 and an estimated 7 million citizens between September 20th and 27th, 2019.
4 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Paris Climate Change Agreement, Article 12, pg. 10. Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Twenty-First Session (December 13th, 2015).
5 Lydia Denworth, “Children Change their Parents’ Minds about Climate Change,” Scientific American (May 6, 2019). www.scientificamerican.com/article/children-change-their-parents-minds-about-climate-change
6 Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to face the mess we’re in without going crazy (Novato, California: New World Library, 2012).
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues we face today, with long-term risks for the environment, the economy, and the well-being of our societies. As 25% of the world’s population is under 18 years-old, children and youth are most at risk from climate impacts that will worsen over time. In Canada, almost half of students (46%) in Grades 7 to 12 understand that climate change is human caused, yet don’t believe it can be addressed with current efforts, leading students to feel hopeless, scared, anxious, and dismissive. School is therefore an ideal place to learn about climate change and to develop a generation of young people who are equipped to meet this large-scale challenge.
As part of the Paris Agreement on climate change, Canada committed to “enhance climate change education.” Educators don’t need to be climate change experts. Rather, they can use their positions to go beyond teaching just the facts in ways that allow students to participate in activities that have real impacts on climate change.
Bieler, A., Haluza-Delay, R., Dale, A., & McKenzie, M. (2017). A National Overview of Climate Change Education Policy: Policy Coherence between Subnational Climate Educational Policies in Canada (K-12). Journal of Education for Sustainable Development 11(2), 63-85. doi: 10.1177/0973408218754625 Chopin, N., Hargis, K., & McKenzie, M. (2018). Building Climate-Ready Schools in Canada: Towards Identifying Good Practices in Climate Change Education. Sustainability and Education Policy Network, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. Council of Canadian Academies. (2019). Canada’s Top Climate Change Risks, Ottawa (ON): The Expert Panel on Climate Change Risks and Adaptation Potential, Council of Canadian Academies. Retrieved from: https://cca-reports.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Report-Canada-top-climate-change-risks.pdf Field, E., Stevens, J., & Spiropoulos, G. (in review). Empowering learners in a warming world: inquiry guide for secondary teachers. Will be available from: http://lsf-lst.ca/ Field, E., Schwartzberg, P. & Berger, P. (2019). Canada, Climate Change and Education: Opportunities for Public and Formal Education (Formal Report for Learning for a Sustainable Future). Retrieved from: (http://www.LSF-LST.ca/cc-survey) Field, E. (2017). Climate Change: Imagining, negotiating, and co-creating future(s) with children and youth. Curriculum Perspectives, 37 (1), 83- 89. DOI: 10.1007/s41297-017-0013-y Field, E. & Spiropoulos, G. (in progress). Canada: national curriculum analysis of climate change education. Kelsey, E. (2016). Propagating Hope. Emotions and Environmental Education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 21. Kamenetz, A. (Apr. 22, 2019). Most teachers don’t teach climate change; 4 in 5 parents wish they did. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/714262267/most-teachers-dont-teach-climate-change-4-in-5-parents-wish-they-did McKeown, R., & Hopkins, C. (2010). Rethinking Climate Change Education. Green Teacher, 89, 77-21. Monroe, M.C., Plate, R.R, Oxarant, A., Bowers, A. & Chaves, W.A. (2017). Identifying effective climate change education strategies: a systematic review of the research. Environmental Education Research. DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2017.1360842 UNFCCC. (Dec. 12, 2015). Adoption of the Paris Agreement. Report No. FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/Rev.1, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf Whitehouse, H. (2017). Point and counterpoint: climate change education. Curriculum Perspectives, 37(1). 63-65. DOI:10.1007/s41297-017-0011-0 Wynes, S. & Nicholas, K. (2019). Climate science curricula in Canadian secondary schools focus on human warming, not scientific consensus, impacts or solutions. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0218305: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218305
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