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environmental problems in schools

Environmental Problems in Schools and How to Address Them

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Environmental awareness is increasing all around the world. This normalization of green thinking has formed a shift in the education system. Classes that address eco-friendliness are now present in many school curriculums. However, are these establishments practicing what they preach?

Schools affect the environment in four fundamental ways: food waste, general waste management, energy use, and water management. When these areas get neglected, they cause significant environmental issues. However, schools that adopt green practices to improve areas of concern reduce their carbon footprints. 

One can approach these obstacles with practical solutions by evaluating a school’s management of certain features. Informing staff, educators, and students of core environmental problems in schools and solutions enables community efforts to achieve sustainability.

An educational establishment’s inadequate food disposal impacts environmental degradation and significantly eats into a school’s budget. Studies show kids in the United States waste 50% of the food on their plates — primarily fruits and vegetables. This is significantly more than other countries, adding up to 540,000 tons of wasted food annually. 

Of course, food waste is more than simply throwing away a nutritional resource. When you dispose of uneaten products, you contribute to unnecessary transportation waste from carbon emissions. Some of the foods we purchase are outsourced from countries with environmentally destructive practices — these nations over-farm and cause soil depletion. The disposal of adequate food supports these avoidable forms of environmental degradation.

Schools can challenge food waste production by following the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) food recovery hierarchy. This method suggests limiting disposal by reducing the amount of food cooked , donating to soup kitchens, reusing excess for animal feed, donating oils for industrial use, composting, and disposing of food in the garbage as a last resort.

Educational establishments can utilize this EPA method by:

  • Creating a menu form for kids to fill out regarding the next day’s lunch
  • Developing a shared food table for uneaten goods
  • Crafting an on-site compost
  • Donating to local soup kitchens biweekly

This waste reduction method also has the potential to teach students about giving back to their community. Donating leftover food and compost ensures low-income households get their next meal. 

General Waste Management

A lack of recycling and waste management education has created a challenge for school sustainability. For instance, out of 2,000 Americans, 62% worry about recycling incorrectly — 68% think they can recycle plastic utensils, while 54% believe a greasy pizza box is recyclable.

Consider the many items students, teachers, and staff throw away daily — plastic bottles, paper, and other materials could instead be donated or reused. Adopting recycling habits can shift awareness of how resources get utilized in the classroom.  

Schools can reduce their waste and dispose of it responsibly in various ways, such as the following:

  • Craft an assortment of disposal bins for different materials to inform staff and students of proper waste management
  • Develop a recycling and waste management club that features informative presentations by students
  • Create mandatory waste management training for staff
  • Email parents rather than sending home pamphlets and slips to reduce paper use
  • Avoid printing and routing school memos — email them instead
  • Donate extra materials to thrift stores and supply drives
  • Use secondhand materials rather than buying new ones every year
  • Use recycled materials for art projects
  • Ensure recycling bins are accessible throughout campuses
  • Encourage students to use the fronts and backs of papers
  • Create an online classroom portal to post assignments and announcements instead of printing them
  • Install motion sensor hand dryers in bathrooms to reduce paper towel waste

Educating students on recycling properly is the most crucial way to reduce general waste. However, you can make learning fun by holding contests to see which grades or classrooms recycle the most materials. 

The classroom can become greener by implementing environmental education and sustainable waste practices. Students like to put their knowledge to work in the real world, so including them in these processes will aid learning and community development. Sorting is also a fun practice that keeps students engaged in school.

Schools spend over $6 billion a year on energy — for perspective, they spend more money on energy consumption than textbooks and other teaching materials. Most of this energy use also comes from devices not conducive to learning.

Classroom electronic devices drive excess energy consumption and disrupt students’ focus. Many children retain information more adequately using a pencil and paper than a projector and a laptop. According to one study, writing by hand increased information recall, while students demonstrated a 25% increase in note-taking than those using technology.

Limiting school energy consumption can aid in deep learning, save money, and conserve the environment. To reduce energy use in schools, one should:

  • Turn off the lights in an unoccupied room or rely on natural lighting
  • Set the thermostat to an energy-efficient temperature
  • Encourage the school community to wear weather-appropriate clothing
  • Install energy-efficient lightbulbs
  • Use the school budget to install solar panels
  • Install energy-efficient hand dryers
  • Plug devices into energy-efficient power strips
  • Upgrade cafeteria kitchen appliances for more efficient models
  • Hold class outdoors

Get students involved in energy-saving habits by assigning special jobs. These can include someone turning the lights on and off or asking a tech-savvy kid to shut down electronics at the end of the day. Doing this enables students to take ownership of their energy consumption and encourages them to continue their new practices at home.

Water Management

The United States is the third-highest water-consuming country globally, withdrawing 444,300,000,000 liters per year — much of this gets wasted. 

Households account for nearly 10,000 gallons of wasted water each year — now imagine how much water schools consume without sustainability initiatives. Excessive water consumption derives from worn toilet flappers, dripping taps, and leaky valves. To reduce unsustainable water practices, one can:

  • Place signs in school restrooms to remind staff and students to turn off the faucet and report leaks
  • Have cleaning staff conduct weekly toilet checks to ensure all parts function efficiently
  • Check hoses and outdoor taps to ensure they’re working correctly without leaks
  • Evaluate the school’s water bill to track leaks and usage
  • Install low-flow toilets in all bathrooms — efficient models save 13,000 gallons more water than standard models
  • Install motion sensor sinks

Teachers should incorporate water conservation into classroom lessons. Students will then understand water scarcity and how to improve their water footprint.

Communication Is Key

Reaching out to staff and students can allow for environmental problems in schools to be addressed. Building a community that understands these issues will increase sustainability practices. When a community works together to create these changes, it saves the school money and conserves the environment.

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Three cartoons: a female student thinking about concentration, a male student in a wheelchair reading Frankenstein and a female student wearing a headscarf and safety goggles heating a test tube on a bunsen burner. All are wearing school uniform.

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8 ways to inspire students about the environment

By Naomi Hennah 2019-03-19T10:30:00+00:00

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How you can include the Year of Green Action in your chemistry lessons

An image showing children holding hands gathered in a circle around a drawing of Planet Earth

Source: © Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

As well as being IYPT, 2019 is also the Year of Green Action. This year-long campaign aims to engage ten to 18-year olds from all backgrounds with environmental issues. It’s part of Defra’s 25 Year Environment Plan, which aims: to achieve clean air, clean and plentiful water, thriving plants and wildlife, a reduced risk of harm from environmental hazards such as flooding and drought, using resources from nature more sustainably and efficiently, and enhanced beauty, heritage and engagement with the natural environment.

Using the hashtag #iwill4nature, the Year of Green Action hopes to increase engagement and action – and what better place to start than in your school, in your classroom or in science club? Here are eight activities to try.

1 Plant power

Find out how plants can improve our damaged environment with phytoremediation of land and waste water with this range of resources from the Royal Society of Chemistry and Reckitt Benckiser . They also look at the use of hyperaccumulators for phytoextraction and the potential of phytomining.

2 Direct action, and evolution

One half of 2018’s Nobel prize for chemistry went to Frances Arnold for her work on enzymes produced through direct evolution. Introduce this topic to older students with this article from Chemistry World and for a more scaffolded approach, there’s this Soundbite . You can also examine the environmentally friendly manufacture of chemical substances and the production of renewable fuels for greener transport with the Nobel prize teaching resources can be used to scaffold student understanding.

3 In the bag

An image showing a potato starch compostable wrapper

Source: © Getty Images

Get students making plastic from potato starch. It’s a great way to introduce a discussion on the accumulation of discarded plastic bags, and the associated risks. A law enacted in October 2015 requires all supermarkets and large stores to charge a minimum of 5p for every single-use plastic carrier bag. This has resulted in an 83% reduction in the number of bags handed out, but plastic bags are still a concern.

Linking back to the Nobel prize again, investigating the enzyme hydrolysis of biodegradable poly(L-lactide ) introduces students to the role of chemistry in creating a more sustainable society.

You could also show the Twig world resources video, Oil products: recycling plastics . This short but effective video demonstrates the differences between thermosetting, thermosoftening and partially biodegradable plastics, and how they can be recycled.

The Large molecules chapter from the Inspirational chemistry series provides a range of teaching materials, games, practical activities and demonstrations for teaching topics, such as polymers used every day, plastic bags and textile conservation.

5 Practical action

For younger learners involved in extracurricular activities the Practical action series focusing on a sustainable future is a good fit. The Plastics challenge for example requires them to develop products from recycled objects, as a possible way of tackling environmental problems caused by plastic waste. They investigate the properties of plastics then find solutions to problems caused by plastic waste globally.

6 Kids doing it for themselves

An image showing a group of volunteering children collecting garbage with litter sticks

Show your students how they can have a voice and introduce them to Kids Against Plastic . This charity was set up by kids for kids and aims to reduce single-use packaging. It’s introduced a free, child-led, Plastic Clever Schools initiative focused on reducing the use of the Big Four plastic polluters – cups with lids, straws, bottles and bags – empowering young people to become change-makers and lead their own schools towards being ‘cleverer’ with their use of plastics.

7 When IYPT meets YGA

There are plenty of opportunities to celebrate both the periodic table and the Year of Green action. You could start by discussing how the 94 naturally occurring elements from hydrogen to plutonium were formed, using the Science Learning Hub and Brian Cox’s Wonders of the universe . Then move onto the idea of finite resources, with Mark Winter’s Periodic table cartograms illustrating the relative abundance of elements and those that are disappearing with How will we save our endangered elements? , which includes practice exam questions for ages 14–16. The amazing 94 Elements Project video shows students how the elements touch our daily lives, and links back to phytomining and plastics.

8 That’s capital

Demonstrate sustainable chemistry with real-life examples, such as recycling bins in the classroom. You can explain why we collect the unreacted pieces of metal and use them again and get your students doing microscale chemistry , explaining how it’s a sustainable alternative to larger scale reactions. Help your students build their science capital through developing their understanding of sustainable development and green chemistry so they can make informed decisions and secure their future.

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A student at Colegio San Judas Tadeo, a member of UNESCO's ASPnet programme

Climate change: educating students to fight the crisis

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With the latest UN climate report containing worrying evidence that climate change is having a major effect on all aspects of the environment, how can teachers help children and adults to sort through the growing mass of information, avoid being overwhelmed, and come to an understanding of the challenges, and potential solutions, to what the UN Secretary-General has called “an existential crisis”?

A UN programme for schools is looking to make education a central part of the international response to climate change, and empower students with the knowledge they need to fight the crisis, and adapt to its impacts.

For Natukunda Edetruda, a student at Immaculate Heart School, Uganda, it is important for young people to play a key role in fighting climate change. “The future lies in the hands of the youth, and the youth have a role to play to either destroy it or to keep it. I believe that change begins with an individual and, as an individual, I believe that I should be empowered to protect the environment”.

Natukunda Edetruda, a student at Immaculate Heart School, Uganda, part of the UNESCO ASPnet programme

Natakunda’s school is one of 258 educational establishments, in 25 countries, that took part in a pilot project organized by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ) Associated Schools Network ( ASPnet ), aimed at integrating sustainability, including climate action, into every aspect of school life.

Students and teachers at Immaculate Heart school have taken part in a diverse range of sustainability-related activities, including using recycled glass to make glaze for use in ceramics classes, and constructing a water filter to prevent diseases associated with dirty water.

Other schools in the programme focused on improving the built environment. Waldorf School in Namibia has offset the environmental impact of the school building by planting trees and vegetation, and St. Jude School in Costa Rica has replaced its air conditioners with more environmentally-friendly alternatives, and the students of Cours Saint Marie de Hann in Senegal made a hanging garden from recycled bottles and tyres.

The feedback from schools has been extremely positive, demonstrating a number of positive outcomes. Participating schools greened their premises, improving water, waste and energy management, and the overall health and well-being of school communities; students and teachers developed a stronger environmental conscience, and a vision of how their schools and communities can become more sustainable, and resilient to climate change.

Schools can empower students to change their behaviour and take action for the planet Sabine Detzel, outgoing International Coordinator, UNESCO Associated Schools Network

“There is an enormous wave of optimism that comes out of a project like this’ says Sabine Detzel, outgoing International Coordinator of ASPnet. “You see that people are interested to engage and are ready to do things, and that schools, in a very short time, can be transformed so that they motivate and empower students to change their behaviour and take action for the planet”.

The success of the pilot project, which ran from 2016 to 2018, has prompted ASPnet to invite all its member institutions – some 11,500 schools in 180 countries – to adopt a similar approach and develop action plans to counter climate change at the local level.

Getting climate-ready

A student at Gerakas High School, Greece, part of UNESCO's ASPnet programme

The UNESCO programme demonstrates the importance of making climate action a part of every aspect of school life, from teaching to the way schools are run, and the impact they have on the local community.

The agency has produced a guide for schools, called Getting Climate-Ready , which advocates for this “whole-school” approach. Several benefits have been identified by teachers, such as more meaningful and hands-on learning opportunities, significant reductions in the schools’ ecological footprints, and savings through more efficient use of resources.

For example, at Colégio Israelita Brasileiro, a school in Rio de Janeiro, everyone at the school, from janitors to teachers, students and support staff, participates in climate-related learning activities. These include building solar and bamboo bicycle racks, and converting used cooking oil into biodiesel. The activities have created bonds between different members of the school community, and brought about a sense of belonging and pride.

At the First Experimental Lyceum, a school in Gennadeio, Greece, an innovative approach has been taken to climate action teaching: biology and chemistry students worked in groups to investigate climate change, virus transmission and the dynamics of ecosystems, using computer simulations.

A student at Weru Weru School, Tanzania, part of the UNESCO ASPnet programme

The findings were then applied to their school building, to find its environmental weaknesses and develop a plan to improve it. This approach was found to engage students, and enrich their knowledge about real-world problems.

Whilst some subjects have an obvious link to climate action (for example, geography and the sciences), the guide suggest ways that many other subjects can include the topic.

History, for example, can examine how societies have, in the past, reacted to environmental challenges. Language and literature classes can help students to develop the communication skills needed to respond to local and global issues, mathematics students can produce graphs showing the change in school energy use, and civics students can interview local officials on the actions they are taking to address the problem.

‘Almost all countries’ educating children about climate change

Encouragingly, nearly all countries have committed to climate change education,  a  UNESCO report released in December 2019 has revealed.

The study found that the most common commitment is to the raising of public awareness, and that cognitive learning is more commonly discussed (i.e. integrating climate knowledge into classroom teaching), rather than social and emotional or behavioural learning. However, it also showed that actual progress is currently hard to monitor, because of a lack of data.

The UN is calling for nothing less than a transformation of the global economy in which technology, science, finance and ingenuity are all focused on ensuring a sustainable future for all.

However, this will only happen if school-leavers have the skills needed to answer the demands of this new, greener economy, and that will require strong leadership from all sectors of society, including governments, international organizations, the private sector and civil society.

  • Established in 1953, ASPnet contributes to the transformation of education systems and policies, through the creation of innovative content and teaching techniques,
  • current membership covers over 11 500 schools from all levels of education in 180 countries,
  • ASPnet is currently looking for partnerships with organizations interested in engaging with climate change education, and willing to contribute funding. Interested organizations can email ASPnet here .
  • climate education

Addressing the Climate Crisis in Your Classroom

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C limate change is the biggest crisis facing our planet. While it’s critical that we tackle issues such as aging populations, inequality, and nationalism, these global challenges will only be exacerbated by the climate crisis. The extreme weather and sea level rise associated with global warming destroy cities, livelihoods, and species, heighten tensions across groups, and widen the unjust divides in the world.

The good news is that, as educators, we have a clear role to play. Article 12 of the Paris Agreement calls for all countries to deliver “climate change education, training, [and] public awareness”—which is our specialty. While few of us may be climate scientists, materials experts, or energy specialists, climate topics are relevant in almost every aspect of what we teach—whether that’s business, law, engineering, social sciences, or humanities. We can and should be raising awareness at our institutions, advancing important ideas, and developing the next climate change leaders.

As founding members of Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) , which includes eight leading business schools in Europe, my colleagues and I have begun to work to find ways of addressing this issue. We’ve shared our thoughts about the need for our schools and other business schools to do even more to address the climate emergency , and we acknowledge that many others have also done excellent work in this area.

Here are four suggestions, drawing on our individual and collective experience, for how you can get started thinking about climate change and preparing your students to be climate leaders.

1. Educate Yourself (and Be OK With Not Knowing Everything)

Before you begin to incorporate climate change concepts into your learning objectives, you will need to understand the underlying science at a basic level. We tend to be perfectionists, so not having a full grasp of the subject may feel uncomfortable for many educators who prefer to have a deep understanding of a topic before bringing it into the classroom.

But with climate change, no one has all the answers—indeed many are not yet known. So I suggest we start with humility. Do the research to get ahead of the learning curve and recognize that your approach to this topic may need to be more experiential. In fact, you may find that you learn just as much from your students as they learn from you.

WATCH THE WEBINAR

Peter Tufano, professor and former dean of University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, recently sat down with HBR editor Amy Bernstein to talk about climate change in a webinar entitled What Business Schools Can Do to Address the Climate Crisis . Tufano and Bernstein discuss what educators can do to tackle climate change in the classroom and inspire students—our world’s future climate leaders. Click here to watch the full recording.

At BS4CL, we hold occasional webinars —open to the public—where we discuss recent developments, including the implications of the war in Ukraine on energy markets and decarbonization.

The hardest step is the first one. Once you start learning enough about the issues, it may be hard to stop, and I suspect that you’ll quickly find a way to apply it to your work.

2. Weave Climate Change into Your Curriculum

I strongly believe that our core values are expressed in our program’s core curriculum. So if you agree that climate change is the biggest issue facing our planet, then it needs to be in your syllabus. And you should be pushing for your department to give the crisis a more permanent place in the core curriculum.

At Oxford, we recognized that systemic problems like this need a home in our curriculum, so we created a required course called Global Opportunities and Threats: Oxford (GOTO) in which students are taught the fundamental science of climate change as well as a set of system mapping and leadership skills. They are then divided into teams and tasked with finding strategic intervention points. For example, “Rather than solving the entire climate crisis, how might you decarbonize certain parts of the world?”

We have also created a version of this course that’s in competition format and open to schools across the world. Map the System —run by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School—challenges students and educators to use systems thinking as a guiding approach to understanding complex issues such as climate change. While students often get rewarded for quick answers, in Map the System, they “win” by having a deep understanding of complicated systems and clear ideas of intervention points. (See the drop-down bar below for other experiential approaches to teaching about climate change.)

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

Throughout BS4CL, we have found that hands-on education is an effective way to increase student engagement. For example, our colleagues at the International Institute for Management Development are piloting a simulation of a future Conference of the Parties, where students role-play different stakeholders (government, climate activists, NGOs, business leaders) to try to hammer out global agreements on climate.

Additionally, our colleagues at HEC Paris and Oxford collaborate with schools in North America to support climate entrepreneurs—and enable students to work with these ventures—as part of Creative Destruction Lab . And at London Business School, students have created a Sustainability Innovation Lab that brings together students and companies on specific challenges, such as achieving a waste-free world.

Other colleagues at IESE have used simulations, such as the Fishbanks or Enroads simulations from MIT, in the classroom. And of course, you can break out of the classroom altogether, as our colleagues at HEC Paris are doing with their Climate Days event.

3. Find Allies—Even in Unlikely Places

Taking on this issue in your curriculum can be a big burden for one person to bear. Unlike the concepts in, say, basic finance or statistics courses, those in climate change are constantly evolving. It can feel like you’re starting over every term with your course planning.

THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW—THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE URGENCY

The current carbon dioxide level of our atmosphere is about 412 parts per million and rising. Earth has experienced carbon measurements over 400 parts per million just two other times in history—both happening millions of years ago when sea levels were up to 120 feet higher than they are now.

Failure to control our emissions means that we will face increasingly disastrous effects, such as more wildfires, floods, and extreme weather. This means we will have to work especially hard and quickly—both as individuals and as a society—to reduce our emissions (think heat pumps, electric vehicles, or just turning down your thermostat) and to remove carbon from the atmosphere (by planting trees or through complicated carbon capture and storage projects that suck carbon out of the air and store it underground).

Climate change is not a problem that can be solved by business or government alone—it is a planetary challenge that will require action at all levels. Together we can develop solutions and begin measuring our progress to decarbonize our atmosphere.

It’s also very likely that your strongest allies will be your students and alumni. A recent study of business students shows that 96 percent think that businesses should be leading efforts to address climate change and 64 percent want sustainability integrated into core curriculum and career services. So if you’re looking for a supermajority of support, it’s already there.

There are many ways to animate and support your allies—and draw from their energy. At INSEAD, faculty have joined many school initiatives, including the following:

The student-led INSEAD Climate Run , which educates the community about climate change and raises funds for nature-based solutions

The alumni-led Community Impact Challenge , which mobilizes the business community to join the race to zero

The staff-led INSEAD Earth Week , which shares best practices on how individuals can contribute to fighting climate change

4. Appeal to Your School Leadership

As important as it is to have bottom-up support from students and other faculty, it’s equally important to have top-down support from school leadership. Most deans and presidents I have met understand the importance of climate, but they often don’t know how to make it more central to their schools’ work. You can help them—and they can help you—by engaging directly in conversation.

Some things are more difficult, like changing the culture of academia and tenure standards. At Oxford, we took a small step by modifying our promotion standards to collect and consider evidence of measures of our colleagues’ impact, whether on abuse of technology or climate solutions. Our hope was that, in time, this would encourage more risk-taking activity by our faculty.

Changing course content, especially in core courses, can feel like a territorial and inertial process. Sometimes a little encouragement from the top of the organization—coupled with “bottom-up” support from students and alumni—can help move things along faster.

Working to Bridge Political Divides

The science of climate shouldn’t be political, but the implementation of climate policies can be divisive. Who benefitted from all the fossil fuels we burned, and who is expected to pay to slow the warming? Which regions, which countries, and which generations?

“Our students will have no choice but to bear the consequences of our action and inaction. Our job is to prepare them for the work ahead, encourage them to look for solutions, and help them recognize that they have some degree of agency over their futures.”

Everyone needs to see climate change as a critical part of their agenda. Political divides may create road bumps, but increasing wildfires, flooding, heat waves, and other early manifestations of global warming will provide ample evidence. The science of de-carbonization is simple—the longer we wait to act, the more aggressive we will have to be, or the more we will subject future generations to a planet unlike the one we have enjoyed. So it’s important that we try to bridge these political gaps and look for implementable solutions now.

Our students will have no choice but to bear the consequences of our action and inaction. Our job is to prepare them for the work ahead, encourage them to look for solutions, and help them recognize that they have some degree of agency over their futures. At the end of the day, the science of accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is relentless. We simply don’t have the luxury to wait a few years or a decade to act. We must incorporate climate into our teaching and research now.

Course Materials and Recommended Reading

Our colleagues at BS4CL created a set of materials—a toolkit —that we freely share with educators, students, and professionals. It looks at climate and business through eight lenses, ranging from interactions (climate and inequality) to tools (climate and risk management).

To further help you incorporate climate issues into your curriculum, here is a Course Explorer collection that offers a curated list of materials: Course Materials to Discuss Climate Change . You may also be interested in viewing additional sustainability-themed collections and course modules here .

And if you’re looking for a good, solution-focused guide to climate change, check out Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken.

Let us know . Are you addressing climate change in your classroom? If so, what challenges have you faced with the content, your students, or with your administration?

This piece is adapted and expanded from the April 19, 2022 , issue of The Faculty Lounge newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here .

Peter Tufano

Peter Tufano is the Peter Moores Professor of Finance and former dean at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and a former professor at Harvard Business School. He is the cofounder of Commonwealth , a social enterprise that builds solutions to make people more financially secure.

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how to address environmental issues as a student

Unleashing the creativity of teachers and students to combat climate change: An opportunity for global leadership

Subscribe to planet policy, christina kwauk and christina kwauk former brookings expert, head of climate and education - unbounded associates @ckwauk rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

March 26, 2021

  • 31 min read

What if, with a little leadership from global heads of state, including U.S. President Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Johnson, there was an opportunity to catalyze a movement at home and abroad that combats climate change, strengthens the civic health of communities, closes the learning gap in 21st century workplace skills between low and high-income girls and boys, and strengthens teacher capacity? It might sound too good to be true, but there is an opportunity for political leadership to spearhead what we are calling a new green learning agenda —a new way of educating and engaging children, youth, and adults in climate solutions—by unleashing the creativity of teachers and students to develop and implement climate action projects in their homes, schools, and communities. This approach to teaching and learning is grounded in decades of research on how children learn and helps build mastery of core academic content while also catalyzing climate action.

A powerful connection: Education and climate change

Recent research shows that if only 16 percent of high school students in high- and middle-income countries were to receive climate change education, we could see a nearly 19 gigaton reduction of carbon dioxide by 2050. When education helps students develop a strong personal connection to climate solutions, as well as a sense of personal agency and empowerment, it can have consequential impact on students’ daily behaviors and decisionmaking that reduces their overall lifetime carbon footprint. Imagine if 100 percent of students in the world received such an education. New evidence also shows that the combination of women’s empowerment and education that includes everyone—especially the 132 million out-of-school girls across the developing world—could result in an 85 gigaton reduction of carbon dioxide by 2050. By these estimates, leveraging the power of education is potentially more powerful than solely increasing investments in onshore wind turbines (47 gigaton reduction) or concentrated solar power (19 gigaton reduction) alone. When we say that all climate solutions are needed to draw down greenhouse gases, we must also mean education solutions, too.

When we say that all climate solutions are needed to draw down greenhouse gases, we must also mean education solutions, too.

But beyond education’s potential impact on reducing carbon emissions, education—especially for girls—can save lives in the context of natural disasters exacerbated by climate change by reducing climate risk vulnerability. In a study of 125 countries , researchers found that the death toll caused by floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme temperature events, and extreme weather events could be 60 percent lower by 2050 if 70 percent of women were able to achieve a lower-secondary-school education. Imagine if 100 percent of women were to achieve a full 12 years of education.

An equally important outcome of education is its potential to increase young people’s capacity to adapt to the harsh impacts of climate change by building important knowledge and a breadth of “ green skills .” For example, young people need both a strong knowledge base around the causes of a warming climate but also a strong set of skills that will allow them to apply their knowledge in the real world, including problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork, coping with uncertainty, empathy, and negotiation. Indeed these very “transferable skills” are needed equally to thrive in the world of work and to be constructive citizens.

Today it is those communities that have historically contributed the least to present-day carbon emissions—such as minority and indigenous communities in the U.S. and many low- and middle-income countries and small island developing states —that are often the most vulnerable to its risks and impacts. In the U.S. for example, 6,000 schools are located in flood zones and 1 million children had their learning disrupted during California’s 2018-2019 wildfire season, hitting students in low-income communities the hardest. Across the globe, schools and entire communities in the poorest countries in the world are regularly upended due to severe floods and hurricanes, all expected to worsen in intensity and frequency due to climate change. For example, in 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines, damaged or destroyed more than 3,200 schools and day care centers, disrupted the education of more than a million children, and placed 49,000 young girls and women at risk of sex trafficking due to their displacement in crowded and unsafe shelters. For these communities, climate change is an unchecked threat multiplier . Combating climate change is a move toward climate justice and gender justice . And education has a role to play. High quality climate-change education can also help empower girls and youth to become powerful change agents for sustainability in their communities, charting new paths forward for what life can and should be like.

Strong public support: Parents, teachers, and students want education to address climate change

There is growing momentum around the world to harness the power of education to combat and adapt to climate change and ensure young people—especially those girls and boys from the most marginalized communities—have the critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills needed to take action. In the U.S., 80 percent of parents ( 2 out of 3 Republicans and 9 out of 10 Democrats ) and in the U.K. 77 percent of adults support teaching climate change in school. Teachers and school administrators are eager to take up the challenge but feel they need more training and relevant learning materials to do so. In the U.S., 86 percent of teachers believe climate change should be taught in school, but nearly 60 percent of teachers report they do not teach climate change because they believe it is outside of their subject area. These statistics are similar in other countries with data: In the U.K., 69 percent of teachers agree that there should be more teaching on climate change, yet nearly 75 percent feel that doing so would push them beyond their knowledge and training. In Europe, 71 percent of teachers believe that in two years’ time the public will view climate change as a serious issue to discuss and learn about in school , but again the majority of teachers feel they needed more training and materials to do so.

In recent years, media attention has focused on the increasingly vocal demand from the world’s youth who are demanding leaders take just and equitable climate action, and also ensure present and future generations develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to address climate change through education. Nowhere is this more evident than in the millions of students behind the Fridays for Future movement and the hundreds of youth who stepped up to organize a Mock COP26 in place of the postponed 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). Additionally, many of these civicly active students will soon be eligible to vote, which should further drive political support for action. But most students feel schools are not doing enough. A survey in Europe found that just 4 percent of students feel they know a lot about climate change; 42 percent feel they have learned a little, hardly anything, or nothing about it at school; and 57 percent of students want to learn more.

An audacious yet achievable goal: Climate action projects in every school by 2025

Imagine a world where every school community from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from China to the U.S. had students actively designing and leading projects aimed at curbing and/or adapting to climate change. In high-emitting countries, these projects might address the most pernicious underlying drivers of climate change and its disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups. For example, in the U.S., students can map and monitor local environmental challenges, analyze local practices, policies, and laws that perpetuate or enable these challenges, and design and implement or advocate for a sustainability plan that addresses the root cause(s). One specific way U.S. students of every age could bring their classroom learning to life is by finding ways to make the the 7 billion school meals served each year more just and sustainable—from sourcing food through school gardens to disposing of it through school composting.

In low-emitting country projects, students could help address the impacts of climate change. For example, young people living in communities near marine-protected areas in Mozambique could test out the real-world application of their biology and social studies lessons by working together to identify and promote the behaviors that help their community become long-lasting stewards of the oceans. And students in Bangladesh’s solar-powered “ floating schools ,” created in response to frequent school disruptions caused by monsoons and flooding, could connect their science and math lessons to support the hydroponics practice of floating farms ; this would strengthen their communities’ livelihoods and climate resilience to help curb the underlying drivers of “famine marriages” experienced by an alarming proportion of young girls .

Integrating this collaborative and experiential learning approach to students’ school experience does far more than harness their energies for the implementation of a global catalog of climate projects. It is one way to begin implementing a new green learning agenda focused on developing deeper understanding of the numerous ways human action can help sustain a planet in balance and build the civic action skills needed to solve collective problems—from climate change to gender inequality to poverty. It will also help build support for a growing call for action from leading advocacy organizations (e.g., EarthDay and The World’s Largest Lesson ) on integrating climate change across the curriculum with a focus on civic action. In other words, this learning approach will help build the mindsets and know-how of the world’s young people to be the drivers now and in the future of climate-smart nations.

Achieving this vision over the next five years—when countries will next be taking stock of their commitments to the Paris Agreement—is undoubtedly ambitious. But with the window of time to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius target closing by the minute, moonshots are what is needed. Luckily there are four conditions that increase this moonshot’s probability of success and make it not only an audacious but also an achievable goal.

1. Successful models of climate-focused project-based learning exist around the world

In Runesu Primary School in rural Zimbabwe, frequent drought and increasing school dropout led the community—together with CARE Zimbabwe—to install a solar-powered water system on school grounds to feed a school vegetable garden and aquaponics facility. 1 Using these projects to inspire hands-on lessons in engineering, aquaponics, agriculture, accounting, project planning, and project management (alongside science and mathematics) has led to a number of positive outcomes, including increased girls’ school attendance, leadership, and empowerment; increased overall student performance by nearly 40 percentage points; and increased community resilience to drought. And across other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, young women are honing their leadership skills through climate activism. For example, young women from CAMFED are engaging in nonformal peer-to-peer project-based learning in climate-smart agriculture to combat climate change, poverty, and gender inequality. Through their community workshops, mentoring, and demonstration farms, these young women have reached over 8,000 people and strengthened the adaptive capacity of even more. Vanessa Nakate, a climate activist from Uganda and recently U.N. Secretary General Youth Envoy , has founded the Rise up Climate Movement, which includes a focus on installing solar cookstoves in school.

In the U.K., Kingsmead Secondary School , a partner of the Green Schools Project, gave students a platform to engage with and respond to environmental issues through student-led projects, including a recycling competition, an energy campaign, vegetable garden, and a walk-to-school campaign. Not only did teachers report that such efforts helped to improve their students’ understanding of climate change, but they also helped to empower students to become agents of change for climate action in their school community and beyond. After one year, the school was able to reduce the amount of recycling going to landfills by 45 percent and after three years saved the school over $50,000 in energy costs. In the U.S., Washington State’s ClimeTime initiative is an example of a successful state-legislated investment in teacher professional development and teacher capacity building to help empower teachers with the confidence and competence to teach climate change. The teacher professional learning communities enable small groups of teacher-to-teacher learning, sharing, and brainstorming on strategies and tools to try out in the classroom and the outdoors (like argument-driven inquiry instruction models or using locally relevant phenomena to drive climate instruction), to reflect on their successes and failures, and to continue to refine their pedagogy in a safe and professional space.

All of these initiatives reflect the good practice principles from the decades of evidence on how children learn best. In “ Learning to leapfrog: Innovative pedagogies to transform education ,” experiential learning is defined as the range of teaching strategies—such as the project-based learning approaches in the above examples—that puts the learners directly in contact with what is being studied. There is strong evidence to show that this approach helps children learn better. The approach usually includes giving students concrete experiences in their schools or communities, facilitating students’ reflection on these experiences, connecting them to the theoretical concepts being studied, and allowing students to iteratively and actively experiment with how to solve a real-world problem. In one study with primary school students in Nigeria, experiential learning approaches were used to help students understand and address local environmental problems—from deforestation to desertification. Students in the program performed significantly better than those in the control group on measures as diverse as environmental knowledge to skills needed to solve immediate and future environmental problems. Indeed, “ A new green learning agenda: Approaches to quality education for climate action ” reviews the range of evidence around effective climate change education strategies, which center on experiential approaches broadly and help students develop a sense of personal responsibility and political agency to take action. These types of innovative pedagogical approaches combined with direct instruction in the classroom are essential for developing the types of skills young people need to need to shape behaviors and society, such as creative and collaborative problem-solving, evidence-based decisionmaking, reasoning, empathy, and the ability to communicate a position.

2. There is a diverse coalition of actors ready to scale successful models

Teachers from around the world are joining forces with EARTHDAY.org to advocate for support and attention to climate change from global leaders—including from the heads of state President Biden is convening in April 2021— demonstrating the strong and growing commitment of civil society actors to address climate change. Education International and other teacher organizations and unions around the world have signed onto calls for more support to teach science, truth, and climate change. Environmental groups such as Earth Day Network and sustainable development groups such as Project Everyone have launched campaigns to improve climate change education globally. In countries around the world, local campaign organizations and youth-led climate activist organizations are demanding greater climate action, climate change education, and climate justice. For example, community-based youth movements that link with after school clubs and activities are helping scale climate action through grassroots mobilization, including through Paryavaran Mitra —a large-scale, project-based sustainability learning initiative across India.

Last year in the U.S., 150 individuals from 120 different organizations and networks came together to cohere a collective vision for climate empowerment for the country and developed a national strategic planning framework to put climate change education at the forefront of U.S. climate action. Such a milestone speaks not only to the volume of civil society actors standing at the ready to scale climate change education across the country (and beyond), but also to the level of expertise, experience, and energy that the Biden administration can lean on in this historic moment for climate action. Tapping into this force—and coordinating it through federal leadership—would put the U.S. at the forefront of civil society engagement on climate change education.

3. School systems are the perfect size for scaling climate action

Emerging research suggests the “sweet spot” for climate action is at the scale of 10,000-100,000 people. This is not only because the collective ability to make meaningful action is rooted in local relevance, but also because we reach a certain degree of cost-benefit optimization when it comes to the global impact of our local actions. If we apply this to education systems, this is equivalent to focusing efforts at the school-district level—or the equivalent school administrative cluster, depending on the population size of cities and counties. School districts are the perfect network of institutions that exist in every country in the world that have enough community connection potential to effectively scale green civic learning. Focusing efforts at the local level enables education interventions to be community-driven, which is aligned to what we know about effective climate action and effective climate change education : That is, it needs to be locally-relevant and tied to local environmental justice issues to local community challenges with climate change, and to action and ownership at the community level.

When it comes to concern about climate change, as well as other controversial topics, research shows that children can have a strong influence on their parents’ views.

4. Students can seed public mindset shift on climate change and climate action

Entrenched political ideology among adults is a major barrier to shifting public opinion on climate change and thus widescale behavioral change toward climate action. This could become an insurmountable obstacle to climate action, as we typically think of parents having a strong influence on the beliefs and behaviors of their children, leading us down a vicious cycle of climate inaction. However, when it comes to concern about climate change, as well as other controversial topics, research shows that children can have a strong influence on their parents’ views. Indeed, when given the tools to facilitate conversations with their parents about climate challenges in their community (without explicitly mentioning climate change), children can bypass adults’ highly resistant political ideologies that typically serve as blinders to their ability to recognize risks and take action. The effect of this intergenerational learning is especially seen by girls on their parents, and especially on male parents and conservative parents. And the effect is not limited to just increasing climate concern, but extends to changes in environmental behaviors, like reducing energy consumption and waste production . Such insights not only point to the power of young people, especially girls, but also to the opportunities to catalyze climate action even among those adults for whom the politicization of climate change has cut them off from climate communication.

Three steps to move from ideas to action

Harnessing the creativity of teachers and students to engage in climate action envisions making every educator a climate champion, every school club leader an advocate, and every lesson applicable to solving some dimension of climate change, its underlying drivers, and/or adapting to its impacts. Achieving a new green learning agenda means developing in learners the understanding and skills to address the causes and impacts of climate change at any level of education and across many different subjects. It is not just for secondary school students in science class. Young children learning to read can try their skills on stories about animals and nature, which provide a perfect segue into exploring environmental issues and climate change in the local community and identifying problems to solve. In Spain, kindergarteners in a Design for Change program noticed there was a problem with littering in a local park and decided to install recycling and trash receptacles at child-level height to address it. With the right support—from materials to coaching—teachers and youth club leaders can find many connections to learning about the environment and its connections to climate change in existing curricula, coding clubs, debate competitions, and after school clubs.

This approach of supporting teachers and students to take action today is one that complements and will help build public support for curriculum reform efforts aimed at incorporating climate change education in school policy and achieving the systems transformation needed to realize fully a new green learning agenda. On average, large-scale curriculum reform across education systems takes 10 to 15 years. To date, despite clear global commitments to harness the power of education dating back to the 1992 Earth Summit, only two countries ( Italy and New Zealand , and soon to be three with Mexico ) have fully integrated climate change into their national curriculum. And only 26 percent of countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions even mention children’s schooling—even less pay attention to education’s important role in achieving gender equality and intergenerational justice. The efforts to include climate change in national curricular requirements, develop more relevant and gender-inclusive technical education for green jobs, and invest in large-scale green public infrastructure that includes schools are all crucial. However, we do not need to wait for these to be accomplished (or even started) to begin implementing a new green learning agenda and harnessing the power of education for climate action. With such high interest from students, teachers, and parents we can begin today with the following three steps.

Step 1: Developing a coalition for action

The first step needed is to develop a diverse coalition of organizations that bring the range of needed expertise to achieve the goal. This will naturally draw on all segments of society from government to civil society to the private sector. There is no shortage of organizations willing and able to participate and it will be essential that the coalition—and the funding mechanisms behind it—is developed in a way that incentivizes the diverse actors to work collaboratively toward achieving the goal. We envision that the coalition would include:

  • Content developers. Organizations like the Smithsonian Science Education Center , Green Ninja , Office for Climate Education , or TROP ICSU , with expertise in developing and curating existing teaching and learning materials using experiential learning approaches, focused on learning about the natural environment and climate change, and linking to a range of curricular subjects across grades.
  • Teacher networks. Teacher networks, like Education International , Climate Generation’s Teach Climate Network , and National Geographic’s Educator Community , dedicated to peer mentoring, training, and resource sharing with an interest in advancing climate change education.
  • Student networks. Student-led extracurricular clubs and youth networks, like the Alliance for Climate Education’s Youth Action Network or the CLEO Institute’s Youth Empowerment Movement , interested in working in their communities to learn about and take action on climate change.
  • Media organizations with an interest in sharing the stories of how different school communities around the world are tackling the challenge set before them.
  • Technology companies. Technology companies that are willing to give their platforms and tools to help support school communities and the coalition share resources, support implementation, and/or track impact of education interventions on the environment.
  • Research organizations. Research organizations with an interest in iteratively capturing and sharing learnings across partners and innovating methods for tracking the impact of educational interventions on both behavioral change and emissions reduction.
  • Governments —including the new U.S. administration and the U.K., which will be presiding over the Global Partnership for Education’s Replenishment, G7, and the COP26 presidency this year—interested in furthering teacher and student action through lesson sharing and integration into national digital platforms and/or through increased policy uptake.
  • Funders from across the government, multilateral, philanthropic, and corporate sector drawing on those interested in supporting education, as well as those mechanisms funding climate mitigation and adaption activities.

Step 2: Supporting teacher and student creativity

The main lever for reaching the goal we set forth is to unleash teacher and student creativity to identify and address the causes and impacts of climate change in communities—and to do this they need support. Given the wide range of local community-based organizations and international organizations with high interest in this type of work, the rollout strategy should link early adopters and their local ecosystem of community organizations with resources and networks to adapt work to those communities not yet engaged in the topic. Such collaborations should be driven by communities and amplified by organizations such as Education International, National Geographic, the World’s Largest Lesson, and Teach for All, which all have global teacher networks and an interest in experiential learning approaches and social justice topics. The range of activities needed to support teacher and student creativity would include:

The main lever for reaching the goal we set forth is to unleash teacher and student creativity to identify and address the causes and impacts of climate change in communities—and to do this they need support.
  • Curating and developing relevant teaching and learning materials. There are many existing teaching and learning materials on climate change but far from all employ experiential and project-based learning strategies and many need to be contextualized to community contents. Therefore, a locally relevant review process is needed to take stock of what exists, particularly with an eye toward materials that meet several key criteria: 1) easy to use, 2) able to be contextualized and made locally relevant, and 3) uses experiential learning approaches. Where there are gaps, new materials will need to be developed. While the approach of empowering teachers and students to bring their learning to life through climate-related projects is a universally applicable principle, the specific strategies of how to do that well must be local. In the U.S., projects may center around schools themselves reducing their carbon footprint, while in Mozambique projects may center around addressing gaps in girls’ education while stewarding wildlife conservation . In urban China, projects may center around responsible consumption and waste management, while in rural China projects may center around environmental stewardship and sustainable use of the country’s major river basins . One approach that should be leveraged to help localize teaching materials and educator resources is to pair teachers and local scientists into “learning pods” where together they develop locally relevant climate-related instructional materials across subject areas.
  • Mentoring and coaching teachers and youth leaders. Teachers overwhelmingly trust other teachers the most when it comes to advice and guidance on what and how they should teach. Therefore, peer learning, exchange, and mentoring on how to incorporate climate change projects that use experiential learning approaches into daily activities can be the main lever for supporting teacher practice. Peer learning networks and mentoring are effective but often underutilized approaches to helping teachers build their skills and confidence in tackling new approaches to learning. Good practice exists within a range of organizations that have expertise in peer learning networks for educators, and these can be expanded to include a focus on experiential learning approaches to climate change. Similarly with youth networks, girls’ clubs, and extracurricular activities, building in opportunities for mentoring, leadership development, and enhancing “ green life skills ” and civic engagement could not only help to combat harmful stereotypes and barriers to opportunities, but also empower girls, marginalized groups, and youth to rewrite their own narratives as agents of change in and for their own communities.
  • Sharing good practice . Given the wide range of projects and approaches that will take place in each school community, developing a platform for sharing good practices and lessons learned will be important to deepening and extending the impact of this effort. Sharing stories via a range of platforms that can inspire other organizations, communities, and constituencies by example to tackle climate change will be an important part of helping harness the full power of education to change mindsets.

Step 3: Capturing learnings to advance impact

Achieving an audacious goal requires a crystal clear theory of change, feasible and powerful process monitoring, and a commitment to continuous evaluation and lessons sharing. Tracking impact and collecting the lessons learned for sharing will be an important component of the effort. The insights gathered from doing so will help build momentum in school communities that are not initially engaged in the effort, distill learnings for policymakers from both the climate and education space that are looking for effective strategies to incorporate into teacher development policy or the National Action for Climate Empowerment strategy . The research organizations leading this part of the work would need to:

  • a cognitive point of entry, such as the introduction of a local environmental resource challenge and possible solutions to it;
  • an affective dimension that helps cultivate empathy toward the environment;
  • an existential component that challenges one’s sense of self and one’s way of living and being;
  • an ownership dimension generated by building a sense of responsibility over a local climate solution; and
  • opportunities for empowered action through a community action project.
  • Track impact. This is particularly important for overcoming the theory of change “problem” behind education—mainly, that increased levels of education have been associated with increased levels of consumption and thus increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Emerging research suggests that it is not any kind of education of which we need more, but rather more quality climate change education that empowers learners with knowledge, strengthens their personal connection to climate solutions, and builds their sense of agency and civic dispositions . Together, these learning gains would create the necessary conditions for the mindset shifts needed to change day-to-day behaviors and decisionmaking with consequential effect in terms of reduced emissions and increased adaptive capacity. To complement our technical solutions to climate change, researchers must be tuned into tracking the impact of different educational solutions at different scales on people and the planet, with an eye toward understanding how context matters.
  • Share lessons learned. While currently there are many isolated initiatives to collect and curate climate change education teaching and learning materials and resources, access to these information hubs is merely the first barrier to empowering teachers to teach climate change. A second barrier is teachers’ feelings of confidence and competence in using these resources and applying them to their local contexts and to their subject areas, as indicated by teacher surveys in the U.S., the U.K., and Europe. To address both of these barriers, efforts are needed to catalogue lesson plans or community climate action projects at the school district level (or the equivalent school cluster that covers approximately 10,000-100,000 students) where they will be most relevant for teachers seeking ideas for school projects, youth group leaders to share with their networks, and teachers and student leaders to share lessons learned and ideas to try out in their own classrooms and clubs.

What success looks like

Unleashing the creativity of teachers and students to combat climate change through student-driven and student-led community-based climate action projects would be a quick win for improving the overall quality of education for a 21st century rife with crises. If done at scale across the millions of school districts across  the world, we could be well on our way to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and to ensuring the quality of life for future generations on this planet.

For starters, such projects could contribute meaningfully to mitigating the causes of climate change (not least by helping to green schools themselves, which often remain public institutions with large carbon footprints) and to adapting to the impacts of climate change (not least by helping build the resilience and adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable—especially girls—to climate impacts, risks, and vulnerabilities). If done with an aim to achieve climate justice, such projects could help seed the social transformations and systems change required to address climate change equitably, including tackling gender inequality, racial discrimination, poverty, and other human rights challenges underlying and exacerbated by climate change. Even our best scientific models suggest that success—that is, achieving the 1.5 degrees Celsius target—is not possible without simultaneously achieving climate justice.

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In addition, through participating in the design and implementation of climate action projects, youth will build “ green skills ,” or their own personal skills and capacities across multiple fronts, including specific capacities like project management skills, cross-cutting 21st century skills like the ability to collaboratively problem-solve, and transformative capacities like collective action and political agency needed for both the world of work and for civic engagement on climate and other social problems. This is especially critical for girls whose leadership and decisionmaking has a demonstrated positive impact on the environment. Teachers would also make large professional gains through stronger peer learning networks that could be used for a range of other topics, adding another way in which countries can build teacher capacity and their professional resilience. Teachers would be more confident and competent not only in teaching climate change across different subjects, but also in experiential, project-based, and inquiry-based learning, which is good teaching practice and can be used for any subject.

The increased relevance of education oriented toward solving local environmental and climate problems is not only a win for society in terms of increasing students’ civic participation and constructive collaboration within their own communities. It also means adding another important player—the education sector—to an important lineup of sectors, like energy, environment, agriculture, transportation, waste management, and infrastructure, working to strengthen the climate-resilience of communities and build a climate-smart nation.

Finally, implementing climate action projects in every school by 2025 will build a groundswell of momentum for climate action and climate justice, especially if community actors are engaged throughout the process. We have seen that the energy of students and their concerns about the environment and interests in climate action can have a ripple effect and help change the mindsets of parents in ways that traditional climate change communication has repeatedly failed. Students—especially girls, empowered by empowered teachers—can help to increase overall public support for climate action, including building demand for the integration of climate change education into curricula and other important dimensions of a new green learning agenda that this “big idea” does not address but for which it can build critical support.

A call to action

When it comes to climate change, humanity sits at an important crossroads with a rapidly closing window of time to take action. We have at our fingertips a big idea—climate action projects in every school by 2025—that through the coordination and activation of a coalition of actors could help set humanity down the path to sustainability. The will is there, as indicated by the millions of youth who have skipped school to demand their governments take greater climate action, as well as the large percentage of teachers who want to teach climate change. It is now time for the U.S. and the U.K., together with global leaders, to seize the moment and step into the leadership role the planet desperately needs.

As the world anticipates global advocacy efforts to shift from explaining why governments need to pay attention to climate change education to how governments can implement climate change education, one way to start—while continuing the long game of curricular integration and reform—is a moonshot idea to unleash the creativity of students and teachers to combat climate change one community at a time.

The year 2021 presents major global opportunities to build this coalition of support further. President Biden’s Earth Day Summit presents an opportunity for the U.S. to announce its plans to prioritize education for climate action, including the resources to back this up—a Brookings Climate Blueprint recommends $2 billion. Countries around the world and multilateral agencies from the United Nations to the development banks have the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and participate in the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education to ensure funds and resources will be directed domestically, bilaterally, and multilaterally to education for climate action. Such support and investment are a critical dimension to the success of the Paris Agreement, as education that leads to climate empowerment is the linchpin to our ability to unbridle all other climate solutions and to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius target. And the U.K. Presidency of the G-7 and of the much-anticipated COP26 must also mark policy wins for climate change education, not to mention the renewal of a more robust and ambitious plan for education for climate action and the convergence of agendas around girls’ education and climate change.

  • Matyanga, M. (2019). Building climate resilient schools in Zimbabwe. Unpublished final report. CARE Zimbabwe. 

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Education is key to addressing climate change

Education is a critical agent in addressing the issue of climate change. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) assigns responsibility to Parties of the Convention to undertake educational and public awareness campaigns on climate change, and to ensure public participation in programmes and information access on the issue.

Education can encourage people to change their attitudes and behavior; it also helps them to make informed decisions. In the classroom, young people can be taught the impact of global warming and learn how to adapt to climate change. Education empowers all people, but especially motivates the young to take action. Knowing the facts helps eliminate the fear of an issue which is frequently colored by doom and gloom in the public arena. In this context, UNICEF has tapped into the minds and imaginations of  children around the world  to capture what it means to be a child growing up in the age of rapid climate change.

Through its  Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development  programme, UNESCO aims to “help people understand the impact of global warming today and increase "climate literacy" among young people.” This programme and other innovative educational initiatives, including the  Global Action Programme (GAP) ,  Action for Climate Empowerment  and the  ZOOM campaign , were presented and discussed at the  COP 22 .

The World Metrological Organization (WMO) works closely with weather presenters who are committed to education and outreach on climate change and who have formed a new network  Climate without Borders,  which has a daily reach of approximately 375,000,000 people, and aims to “educate, motivate and activate” weather presenters to reach out to their audiences armed with useful information.

Partnering with  Climate Central , WMO has also produced a series of  videos  called "summer in the cities" which provide a glance into future effects of global warming on weather in cities around the world. This follows on from a  video series “Weather in 2050 ” in which TV weather presenters reported a typical weather forecast, based on scientific scenarios, for the year 2050.

“Verified for Climate” champions: Communicating science and solutions

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A framework for teaching socio-environmental problem-solving

  • Environmental Education
  • Open access
  • Published: 11 April 2020
  • Volume 10 , pages 467–477, ( 2020 )

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  • Cynthia A. Wei   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3738-6464 1 , 2 ,
  • Michael L. Deaton 3 ,
  • Teresa J. Shume   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9145-4101 4 ,
  • Ramiro Berardo 5 &
  • William R. Burnside   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4309-1438 1  

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A Correction to this article was published on 01 August 2020

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The urgent environmental challenges we now face, from climate change to biodiversity loss, involve people and the planet, the social, and the environmental. Teaching students to become effective socio-environmental problem-solvers requires clarity about concepts and competencies needed to understand and tackle these challenges. Here, we propose an educational framework that describes what students should learn and how they should apply this knowledge to address socio-environmental problems. This framework emphasizes the process of problem-solving and is based on socio-environmental (S-E) synthesis, an integrative, transdisciplinary approach to understanding and tackling complex socio-environmental problems. In addition to identifying the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices necessary for S-E problem-solving at the undergraduate and graduate levels, we clarify how one draws on such competencies to inquire about problems and generate solutions for them. Our primary goal is to provide a useful tool to help guide development of curricula, teaching materials, and pedagogies for S-E synthesis and interdisciplinary environmental education more broadly.

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Introduction

Preparing students to understand and address complex and often global environmental problems is a critical and growing challenge for higher education. These problems, such as transboundary pollution, overfishing, and biodiversity loss, confound teams of seasoned experts and entire societies. Not surprisingly, interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability (IES) programs, whose common goal is to train students to become “sustainability-oriented scientists, leaders, problem solvers, and decision makers” (Vincent and Focht 2010 ), have struggled to articulate coherent and effective ways to meet this challenge (Vincent and Focht 2010 ; Clark et al. 2011 ). This difficulty lies, in part, in the complex, interdisciplinary, and often contested nature of most environmental and sustainability issues. Such problems are often described as socio-environmental (S-E) in recognition of the intertwined nature of their natural and social dimensions. Given the interdisciplinary nature of S-E problems, developing solutions usually require integrating insights from the natural and social sciences, engineering, and other fields (NAS 2005 ; Turner II et al. 2016 ). Such integration is itself challenging because epistemological differences, including the discussion of what constitutes valid knowledge and evidence, can be substantial (Eigenbrode et al. 2007 ). Furthermore, the societal context of S-E problems, along with the need to develop solutions that are embraced by stakeholders with often competing agendas, necessitates a transdisciplinary approach (Mobjörk 2010 ), transcending disciplinary boundaries and engaging perspectives and actors beyond academia. Transdisciplinary work requires individual and team competencies that can be complicated and difficult to articulate. Yet, a clear understanding of how such work is done and the needed competencies associated with it are necessary prerequisites to prepare students to be effective S-E researchers and problem-solvers.

In this paper, our goal is to provide a generalized description of the process of S-E problem-solving and the competencies required for this. We describe them as part of an integrated problem-solving framework to guide pedagogical and curriculum development, which we hope can be of use to the many disciplines and traditions engaged in S-E problem-solving, from natural resources management to sustainability science. This framework leverages S-E synthesis , an integrative, transdisciplinary approach to studying and addressing S-E problems (Turner II et al. 2016 ; Palmer et al. 2016 ; Palmer 2012 ).

Although the skills and knowledge researchers and practitioners employ in S-E synthesis are broad and varied, our framework incorporates three core ideas. First, S-E synthesis is fundamentally system oriented, focusing on the human-nature interface and the holistic perspective advocated by interdisciplinary environmental (IE) program leaders, (Vincent and Focht 2011 ). Practitioners of S-E synthesis assume that environmental problems emerge from an underlying system and that how that system “works” is the key to understanding how these problems form and persist over time (e.g., Meadows 2008 ). Second, S-E synthesis involves integrating existing knowledge, data, and methods across disciplinary boundaries to advance understanding of S-E systems (Pennington et al. 2016 ). For example, researchers have used novel computational methods to combine data on industrial toxic pollution with socio-demographic data to empirically study societal power dynamics in relation to environmental degradation (Collins et al. 2016 ). Third, S-E synthesis emphasizes the production of knowledge that can inform decision-making or “actionable science,” and thus favors transdisciplinary research (as defined in Mobjörk 2010 ) that engages participants beyond academia in co-defining research questions and desired end products (Palmer 2012 ; Lynch et al. 2015 ). While the core ideas that comprise the approach are not new, we focus on S-E synthesis in building an educational framework, because our main goal is to provide a critical perspective for designing curricula to prepare students to effectively implement S-E problem-solving.

S-E synthesis provides a powerful foundation for an education framework because it offers several benefits: First, the integrated study of social and environmental systems provides a more holistic picture of the complexity that underlies socio-environmental problems and systems than would be apparent through social or natural science studies alone (Liu et al. 2007 ). Second, the use of existing data, methods, and ideas in synthesis research facilitates the development of new approaches and expands opportunities for novel analyses (Carpenter et al. 2009 ). Third, by bringing together people and disciplines usually distinct, it has the potential to promote unforeseen insights and collaborations and to inform practical solutions (Lynch et al. 2015 ). Like systems themselves, it can catalyze emergent outcomes.

The need for a unified educational framework for S-E problem-solving

Many fields have focused on identifying core competencies students should develop (biology: AAAS 2011 ; physics: AAPT 2014 ) as prerequisites to developing disciplinary identity and as guidance for the development of programs, curricula, and classroom materials. In the environment and sustainability fields, there have also been many efforts to articulate requisite competencies (reviewed in Wiek et al. 2011 , Lozano et al. 2017 , Sterling et al. 2017 , and Evans 2019 ). These efforts share the common trait of emphasizing competencies that prepare students to work with complex systems (e.g., Frisk and Larson 2011 ). Yet, few of these efforts have provided a coherent picture of what students should learn, instead offering bulleted lists of competencies to learn (as noted by Wiek et al. 2011 ). In contrast to disciplinary training, where there is relatively good agreement on foundational theories, concepts, and skills, the arena of IES education lacks such clarity (Vincent and Focht 2011 , but see Wiek et al. 2011 and Segalas et al. 2009 ). Within IES programs, students “… see their basic educational task as acquiring disciplinary knowledge and skills … They trust that a mix of these disciplines and methods will provide them with a sufficient tool kit” (Clark and Wallace 2015 , p. 248). However, such an approach is insufficient: What is also needed is guidance on how and when to apply and integrate the knowledge and skills in their “toolkit”; a framework can help provide and visualize that guidance (Clark and Wallace 2015 ; Wiek et al. 2011 ).

Toward a unified educational framework for S-E problem-solving

Here, we propose an educational framework that summarizes and articulates the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices necessary for undergraduate and graduate students to engage in socio-environmental research and problem-solving. It explains the relationships among these elements to help clarify how one approaches problems, conducts inquiry, and generates solutions. We hope that it will serve as a coherent vision that avoids the problems identified by Clark et al. ( 2011 ) and others for IES programs. At the undergraduate level, we hope that it provides both guidance on the foundational competencies students should be developing and a clearer understanding of why these competencies are critical to learn. Moreover, we hope that the framework provides inspiration for the design of pedagogical approaches, such as problem-based learning or case study methods that enable students to practice these competencies to assess and solve socio-environmental problems. At the graduate level, this framework can guide the development of opportunities for more-advanced practice and integration of competencies in the context of socio-environmental problem-solving.

The genesis of this framework began in a workshop on Teaching about Socio-Environmental Synthesis: Moving Towards Best Practices convened at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) on June 21-24, 2016.. Participants represented a broad range of disciplinary expertise (ecology, evolutionary biology, sustainability, anthropology, philosophy, education, systems science, policy, and environmental science) and experience in S-E synthesis research and had developed S-E synthesis case studies that had been used in the classroom. During the workshop, this group sought to identify the full set of competencies and practices needed for students to undertake S-E synthesis research and problem-solving and ultimately identified four competency domains: systems thinking, boundary crossing, sociocultural awareness, and integrative research. These domains, described below, collectively encompass the diverse skills and practices involved in S-E synthesis and provide guidance for developing student-focused learning outcomes for S-E synthesis.

However, taken in isolation, the four competency domains do not provide sufficient guidance for how to use these competencies in the process of actually doing S-E synthesis work. They can quickly be treated as another more highly aggregated bullet list of skills and knowledge. They need to be placed within a problem-solving framework in order to promote the interdisciplinary integration practices that characterize S-E problem-solving. Drawing on Ostrom ( 2009 ), such a framework should provide (a) a broad goal-oriented process of inquiry and problem-solving within which individual competencies are applied, (b) a holistic approach for gathering and creating synthesized knowledge across multiple domains (Clark and Wallace 2015 ), and (c) clear connections between individual competencies and the greater S-E problem-solving effort.

Recognizing the need for these criteria, the authors of this paper, who comprise a subset of the original workshop participants, continued discussions following the workshop to develop a framework emphasizing the process of socio-environmental problem-solving and the role of various competencies in that process. These conversations and the related literature selection process built on our collective experiences as educators, researchers, and practitioners in the environmental arena and our expertise in socio-environmental synthesis, systems science, sustainability science, policy, and environmental education and pedagogy.

The framework we have developed contains four components, all of which should be addressed when designing educational experiences aimed at developing these skills: 1) the desired outcomes from S-E synthesis, 2) the process of inquiry for achieving them, 3) the competencies required, and 4) the interrelationships between all of these. These building blocks and their relationships are shown in Figs.  1 , 2 , and 3 and described in detail in the accompanying discussion below.

figure 1

This figure identifies the five desired outcomes of a S-E synthesis problem-solving process that lead to sustainable solutions. The goals are described as enhanced insights toward each of the five outcomes identified by the dashed arrows

figure 2

The circular schematic at the bottom of this figure illustrates the key components of the S-E synthesis process of inquiry that leads to the desired outcomes described at the top (and in Fig. 1 ). Arrows indicate the directionality of the process and highlight the point that the process is iterative and can be entered at any point

figure 3

This figure illustrates complete framework by adding the four competency domains. The four large arrows indicate that each competency domain is used throughout the S-E synthesis process

The desired outcomes from S-E synthesis

Beginning with the end in mind, Fig.  1 shows five outcomes of S-E synthesis and problem-solving (Fig. 1 ). The outcomes we suggest are insights that reflect and therefore mirror characteristics of S-E challenges. For example, to tackle a challenge in its systemic reality, one must understand the system’s role in the problem. Comparable to Marzano’s ( 2009 ) learning goals that encompass both declarative (i.e., what) and procedural (i.e., how to) knowledge, one can think of these outcomes as being the kinds of insights or knowledge that should be the result of any S-E synthesis effort. We briefly describe these outcomes and illustrate them with a case study of the rock lobster fishery in Western Australia.

In the early twentieth century, commercial fishing operations in the Western Australian rock lobster fishery reaped a bountiful harvest of lobster and correspondingly bountiful economic return. This stimulated further growth of commercial fishing and an even greater total harvest—a self-reinforcing cycle of growth. Following WWII, the annual harvest grew from less than 500 metric tons to over 8000 metric tons in the 1950s. Moreover, this growth brought with it more sophisticated and efficient fishing technologies that enabled fishing fleets to continue reaping a profitable harvest. This effectively masked the decline in the lobster population, and by the mid-twentieth century when the lobster population had reached critically low levels, it was almost too late to take action (Phillips et al. 2007 ). We consider the implications below.

Outcome #1: identification of the system actors, dynamics, and boundaries

S-E problems emerge and are sustained by systems involving interactions among both human (social) and natural (biophysical) actors and forces. Understanding S-E problems and finding sustainable solutions require an analysis of the structures, boundaries, and behavior of those systems. Doing so minimizes the potential for misinformed or naïve analyses that fail to account for factors that are geographically or temporally distant from the obvious symptoms of the problem. In addition, this allows stakeholders to see their own goals and actions in light of their broader impact. For example, in the case of the western rock lobster fishery, overexploitation was a natural outcome created by interactions between economic forces, natural ecosystem dynamics, lobster fishermen, and consumers. Sustainable solutions for such a problem require that analyses consider the roles of those actors, economic realities, and the ecosystem.

Outcome #2: illuminating the role of the system in the problem

Once the scope and boundaries of the underlying system(s) are identified, an analysis of system structure will lead to insights about how certain characteristics of the system may actually contribute to creating the problem and making it resistant to change. Learning how to identify and evaluate the roles of structural features such as feedback dynamics, delays from cause to effect, emergent behavior, and sources of momentum is critical.

In the rock lobster example, the near collapse of the fishery was not the intent or goal of the actors in the system. It was instead an emergent outcome—created by the feedback dynamics and information delays in the system. By accounting for the role of these system features and by finding ways to subvert them, managers eventually identified and implemented viable interventions.

Outcome #3: transdisciplinary alignment toward shared understanding of problem

Progress toward a sustainable solution is not possible unless relevant decision-makers and stakeholders reach a common understanding of the roots of the problem—how the interactions of the actors (human and otherwise) collectively contribute to the problem. Achieving such transdisciplinary alignment requires close collaboration between disciplinary experts, stakeholders, and decision-makers—each bringing critical knowledge from distinct and complementary vantage points. Without consistent effort to facilitate this collaboration, the entire endeavor can regress into a conflict-ridden state in which scientific, social, and political realities clash. A shared understanding of the problem will be impossible, and progress toward sustainable solutions will be unlikely.

In 1965, in response to the developing crisis in the Western Australian rock lobster fishery, the Australian government passed the Fish Resources Management Act, which created the Rock Lobster Industry Advisory Committee, comprised of fishery researchers, fishermen, and fishery managers from the Australian government. This group was charged with developing an approach that would enable a sustainable, economically profitable, and ecologically sound western rock lobster fishery. The diverse makeup of this transdisciplinary group enabled a holistic analysis of the problem that drew on the critical expertise of stakeholders, scientists, and policymakers. This body continues to operate today.

Outcome #4: identification of effective modes of intervention

Given a common understanding of the systemic roots of the problem, the S-E synthesis effort should identify options for effectively and ethically intervening to solve the problem. Rather than simplistic prescriptions based on naïve cause-effect explanations or unfounded sociocultural assumptions, these interventions are instead informed by the transdisciplinary, system-level understanding of the problem, corresponding to the other outcomes.

The efforts of the Rock Lobster Industry Advisory Committee eventually led to a series of principles that have guided the management of the fishery since at least the 1970s (Phillips et al. 2007 ). These principles exemplify an approach that is founded on solid science and that value the input and considerations of the commercial fishing industry and have proven to be a highly successful guide since their adoption. In the past two decades, the western rock lobster fishery has consistently been recognized as one of the best managed fisheries in the world (Phillips et al. 2007 ).

Outcome #5: identification of tradeoffs and uncertainties associated with proposed interventions

S-E problems are characterized by tradeoffs between competing goals among stakeholders and often between what stakeholders require to pursue their own goals and what is required for the long-term sustainability of natural resources. Moreover, the nature and intensity of these tradeoffs are often not clear, and many of the factors involved are not easily measured. In addition, because S-E systems adapt to change, any intervention can lead to unintended consequences (Sterman 2000 ). Hence, an S-E synthesis effort should explore these tradeoffs and uncertainties by identifying and evaluating assumptions that could have a significant bearing on the veracity of the analysis.

For example, the principles guiding management of the western rock lobster fishery require an annual reevaluation of the size of the fishing fleet and allowable harvest. This is informed by ongoing research, monitoring of environmental conditions, and predictions of fishery recruitment rates. These policies inevitably impose short-term hardships on those whose livelihoods depend on the annual harvest, and have fueled illegal fishing activity. Through the cooperative efforts of the members of the Rock Lobster Industry Advisory Committee, adaptive inspection and enforcement activities have proven highly effective in combating such illegal activity.

The process of inquiry for achieving these outcomes

How are these outcomes achieved? The process by which S-E synthesis leads to them is described in Fig.  2 and draws from Burnside et al. ( 2015 presentation at the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences) and Palmer ( 2017 ), who describe the phases of S-E synthesis research, as well as Bammer ( 2013 ) and Clark and Wallace ( 2015 ), who describe the kinds of activities involved in interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary work. The order in which the process activities are presented should be interpreted as a logical ordering, but not as a rigid step-wise procedure. In fact, many of these activities are concurrent and recursive; findings from one activity might lead to a revisiting of work done in earlier stages.

Process activity #1: refine focus and scope

One of the great challenges in S-E problem-solving is clarifying both the problem and the goals of the analysis. The variety of actors involved; their complex interactions with their natural setting; and the potentially broad temporal, governance, and geographic scales of the problem can readily lead to an amorphous set of responses devoid of much-needed consistency. Thus, an important part of the S-E problem-solving process is the refinement of the research questions in response to new insights gained. As new knowledge is gained or as collaborators provide different perspectives, the focus, scope, and desired outcomes of the research may evolve over time.

Process activity #2: assemble expertise

A key task is to identify and assemble the expertise and knowledge required to address a given S-E problem, and the required expertise depends on the focus and scope of the problem and the desired outcomes of the effort. The nature of S-E problems typically necessitates the inclusion of diverse disciplinary expertise, as well as contextual, “on the ground” expertise of decision-makers and stakeholders. When possible, the team makeup should be fluid, evolving as the project progresses and incorporating needed expertise as the nature of problems evolves.

Process activity #3: acquire and integrate information

Given the diversity in expertise and knowledge required to address a particular S-E problem, the types of information that must be considered are similarly diverse and heterogeneous. A hallmark of S-E synthesis is the integration of disparate data and knowledge, which is a significant challenge because data may be of differing types (quantitative and qualitative), may span differing spatial and temporal scales, may be located across many sources, or may not exist in the format necessary for analysis. Additionally, this important phase of the S-E synthesis process often requires a recognition and accommodation of differing views of what constitutes reliable data and valid evidence.

Process activity #4: analyze and reflect

An important part of the S-E synthesis process is identifying or developing appropriate analytical methods and implementing them to draw meaningful conclusions; this often requires sophisticated data analytic methods (Palmer 2017 ). It is also important to continually reflect on how the results of analysis support or contradict the prevailing understanding of the likely causes—and consequences—of a given problem. This activity involves metacognitive processes through which assumptions are checked, mental models evaluated and revised, and sociocultural biases identified and addressed.

Process activity #5: revise current understanding

Throughout the process, the current understanding of both the nature and extent of the problem as well as its systemic causes is continually updated as insights emerge and hypotheses are formed and tested. This in turn can lead to a further refinement of the project scope and focus, and so on, as indicated in the circular nature of the process.

Competencies for S-E synthesis

The foregoing discussion implies that successful S-E synthesis efforts depend on the proficient application of a sophisticated and integrated portfolio of competencies. Identifying competencies associated with the S-E synthesis process provides a substantive basis for teaching, ideally marrying an understanding of the architecture of S-E synthesis with the tools and habits of mind that support its application. In the framework, these competencies are categorized into four competency domains described below (Fig.  3 ).

Congruent with Klieme et al. ( 2008 ), we use “competency” to encompass the interrelated skills, dispositions, practices, and habits of mind that shape how S-E synthesis work is conducted. These competencies are woven throughout the effort, informing the process and enabling progress toward the desired outcomes. The competency domains define the needed collective capabilities of the team working on S-E synthesis, rather than those of one individual. However, some familiarity with all of the competencies may be fundamental for all who engage in S-E problem-solving. These domains are not exhaustive nor are they mutually exclusive. In addition, their relative importance will vary from one project to the next.

Competency domain #1: systems thinking

“Systems thinking” refers to the capacity of an individual or team to recognize and analyze a problem as emerging from an underlying system of dynamic and interdependent forces. By “system” we mean “… a set of things – people, cells, molecules, or whatever – interconnected in such a way that they produce their own behavior over time” (Meadows 2008 ). An important feature of a system is that though it may be affected by outside forces, its response to those forces is determined by the structure of the system. Hence, by understanding the structure of the system, we can understand and anticipate its behavior. By emphasizing systems thinking throughout an S-E synthesis effort, the team keeps the big picture in mind and continually evaluates the boundaries of potential factors to consider. In addition, systems thinking methods are often instrumental in building a common understanding of the problem across stakeholders and disciplinary experts (Gray et al. 2015 ).

Systems thinking can employ a wide range of methodologies for describing and analyzing the systems that underlie a given S-E problem. These methodologies range from purely qualitative approaches to highly sophisticated computer modeling. Practitioners might employ combinations of approaches such as soft systems analysis (Checkland and Poulter 2007 ), system dynamics (Morecroft 2015 ), network analysis (Caldarelli 2013 ), fuzzy cognitive mapping (Gray et al. 2015 ), and others. Whatever approach is used, the systems thinking competency domain can be organized into three sub-categories related to 1) describing system structure, 2) relating system structure to emergent behavior, and 3) simulating alternative futures.

First, in order to employ systems thinking, practitioners and students must be able to see beyond simple cause-effect explanations to conceptualize a given S-E problem in terms of the underlying system out of which that problem emerges. Second, simply describing a system is not sufficient for progress toward sustainable solutions. The structure of the system must be explored in order to generate hypotheses about how the system might create and sustain the problem of interest. This requires familiarity and awareness of the role of nonlinearities, feedback, and delays. Finally, simulation methods are often employed to test hypotheses about the extent to which system models can account for current system behaviors, as well as to explore short-term and long-term consequences of options for impacting future system behaviors.

In Nyaki et al. ( 2014 ), participatory systems modeling was used with local stakeholders and national-level policymakers to identify the dynamics driving an illegal bushmeat market in Tanzania. The participatory modeling effort revealed significant disconnects between the assumptions of policymakers and the dynamics that actually influence the actions of local actors in the bushmeat market. In addition, the modeling effort demonstrated that these dynamics vary from one village to the next. This variation, along with the misplaced assumptions, had rendered ineffective the top-down policies used up to that time. By adapting those policies to address these issues, more sustainable corrective policies were possible.

Competency domain #2: integrative research

S-E synthesis draws upon a wide array of research methodologies, data sources, and theoretical frameworks to study S-E systems ( www.sesync.org ). Given the interdisciplinary nature of S-E problems, such research requires the integration of disparate and heterogeneous datasets from multiple disciplines and sources, including both qualitative and quantitative data. Thus, practitioners and students should learn a suite of “integrative research” competencies that will prepare them for interdisciplinary, data-intensive research.

These “integrative research” competencies can be organized into two sub-categories: 1) interdisciplinary research practice and design and 2) data analysis and synthesis. Interdisciplinary research practice and design competencies help student learn how to find, read, and synthesize relevant literature (e.g., Wagner 2014 ); locate and manage both quantitative and qualitative data; and conduct research in an ethical manner (e.g., National Academy of Sciences 2017 ). Concomitantly, the design of S-E synthesis research projects often requires co-developing research questions that involve navigating across epistemological and methodological traditions of various disciplines. The second sub-category, data analysis and synthesis, encompasses a constellation of data science skills necessary for working with disparate sources of data and dealing with inherent challenges such as scale mismatches, data availability, and differing standards of evidence. Such competencies include computational skills for data distillation or integration (including visualization), and quantitative and qualitative data analysis.

Integrative research is essential to S-E synthesis work, including formulating data-based hypotheses, generating and evaluating simulations, and conducting risk analysis. Oftentimes, abilities to logically critique natural resource management policies or legal regulations are ultimately dependent on proficient integrative research competencies. For example, in order to reform national policy and institute legally enforced regulations about freshwater pollution, the government of New Zealand drew upon regional research that compared two approaches for establishing catchment loads for diffuse nutrient pollution. One approach was based on a river’s “in-stream” nutrient concentration, while the other was based on computer-based predictive modeling (Duncan 2017 ). A suite of data science skills was necessary to fully understand and cogently interpret the findings of each research approach. Thus integrative research competencies underpinned the ability to compare strengths and weaknesses of each approach, to evaluate implications for compliance and enforcement mechanisms, and ultimately, to critique or propose policy responsive to the complexities involved in measuring and regulating diffuse water pollution.

Competency domain #3: boundary crossing

S-E problem-solving typically requires crossing a wide variety of boundaries between academic disciplines, civil and governmental sectors, and organizations and institutions, as well as research methodologies, epistemological traditions, and even ontological paradigms (Spelt et al. 2009 ). Thus, students aspiring to become S-E problem-solvers need to develop a particularly sophisticated orientation to boundary crossing (Clark et al. 2011 ; Reich and Reich 2006 ).

This domain includes at least two broad categories: 1) skills for facilitating inter- or transdisciplinary collaboration and 2) professional habits of mind conducive to boundary crossing. First, S-E synthesis work often requires collaborative work in cross-disciplinary teams. This brings a unique set of research challenges related to negotiating boundaries between team members and achieving the kind of knowledge integration paramount to S-E synthesis. There is a growing emphasis on developing and promoting effective methods and tools that can facilitate successful collaborative research, particularly for transdisciplinary teams addressing S-E problems (Bammer 2013 ; Bammer 2017 ).

S-E synthesis work also requires that differences in perspective are proactively sought and embraced as an opportunity for deeper understanding. Active listening, empathetic patience, and mutual respect may generate novel and innovative ideas that might never have emerged from a single disciplinary perspective. A decidedly solution-driven pragmatism is necessary for practicing these skills in the presence of the inevitable challenges posed by interdisciplinary work. Furthermore, boundary crossing requires a high tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity, and contradiction.

The importance of the boundary crossing domain can be aptly illustrated by a case study about Minnesota’s wolf hunt (Wallace et al. 2014 ). Hunter and trappers, indigenous groups, farmers and ranchers, and wildlife advocates are among the stakeholder groups impacted by wolf hunting regulations. Because of the wide range of human values associated with wolves, perspectives within and between various stakeholder groups can be highly diverse and sometimes sharply contradictory. Yet, input from multiple stakeholder groups is paramount to the development of pragmatic solutions and workable regulations. Though the design of Minnesota’s wolf management plan was based on a “wealth of biological, sociological, cultural, and economic data, reports, and experiences” (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources 2001 ), its implementation fueled controversy and resulted in extensive court battles. Without sophisticated boundary crossing competencies, it would be difficult to make defensible recommendations about statewide wolf management regulations or to appreciate the complexity of myriad factors that make consensus about wolf hunting regulations so vexingly difficult to achieve.

Competency domain #4: sociocultural awareness

Because every S-E system includes social components, dimensions of human societies such as cultural, political, economic, philosophical, historical, and religious influences must be considered. Hence, robust practice of S-E synthesis requires a deep understanding of those influences (Martusewicz et al. 2011 ). These sociocultural factors involve more than the context within which an S-E problem occurs: They are in fact key elements of the S-E system itself. Their role in that system must be recognized and understood in order to achieve the desired outcomes of S-E synthesis.

The sociocultural competency domain can be organized into three related sub-categories: 1) sociocultural self-awareness , 2) sociocultural contextual awareness , and 3) recognition of the ethical dimensions of decision-making in differing social contexts. First, students need to develop self-awareness of their own identities, cultural beliefs, and viewpoints, as well as awareness and respect for those of others. Failing to do so can lead to a disregard for social values and practices different than one’s own, which in turn can result in supposed “solutions” that ignore or devalue critical stakeholders. Achieving sociocultural self-awareness requires frequent self-reflection, tolerance for ambiguity in the presence of values or practices that are outside of experience, and an expansive capacity for empathy—the ability to understand the perspective of others. Second, sociocultural contextual awareness requires knowledge of how social, cultural, political, and economic structures shape the organization and dynamics of S-E systems and necessitates an ability to recognize current and historical inequities in power relationships. Third, understanding the ethical dimensions of S-E decision-making requires that one recognize the value-laden character of risk assessment, along with the invariably unequal distribution of benefits and burdens that are a fundamental feature of many S-E problems.

The sociocultural competency domain interacts in profound ways with other competency domains and throughout S-E synthesis problems. Such competence can enable one to recognize the cultural and ideological assumptions encoded in language and to understand why valuations of what constitutes legitimate evidence can differ significantly among stakeholders. Conversely, a lack of such competencies can lead to exclusion of marginalized stakeholders or inequitable decision-making due to projecting one’s own values on others or failing to recognize the full impacts of tradeoffs associated with different courses of action.

Though critical to the success of any S-E problem-solving effort, sociocultural awareness is often at risk of being overlooked or ignored. For example, when Bali’s traditional Subak rice paddy irrigation system was replaced by techno-scientific agricultural practices of the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, disastrous crop failures ensued. Though initially dismissed by scientific experts, the traditional water management system rooted in social, cultural, and religious practices was eventually recognized as highly effective at determining optimal planting and irrigation schedules and thus maximizing rice yields (Lansing 1987 ; Wei et al. 2014 ).

Final reflections: using the proposed framework to guide pedagogy

In a world where environmental issues are increasingly more confounding, complex, and urgent, preparing students to address S-E problems through transdisciplinary research is increasingly important. Yet, given the broad scope of disciplines, perspectives, skills, methods, and knowledge involved in this enterprise, discussions about what students should learn and how to prepare them to become S-E problem-solvers have yielded relatively little clarity. The educational framework proposed here aims to provide better clarity by articulating the desired outcomes of S-E problem-solving efforts, the process by which a transdisciplinary team can achieve these outcomes, the competencies required, and how these elements are woven together to maximize chances of success. Our purpose in developing this holistic framework is to provide guidance to educators in considering what students should learn regarding S-E problem-solving and in developing associated learning goals. The need for such an integrative framework became apparent to us during our workshop as we discussed best practices in teaching about socio-environmental synthesis: we realized that a common struggle we all had in designing teaching case studies was reconciling a wide range of both content-based, skills-related, and affective learning goals with the learning activities and assessments we were designing for our cases. This framework helps align these elements of pedagogical design by making visible the connections between the various types of learning goals commonly highlighted in environmental and sustainability courses and embedding them in the context of a problem-solving process. This provides an important starting point for designing the activities and assessments that students will engage in to achieve the desired learning outcomes.

Beyond its role in identifying what students should learn, this framework can also provide guidance on how students can learn to be better S-E problem-solvers. By situating competencies in relation to an overarching S-E synthesis process, the framework highlights the importance of exposing students to these competencies in ways that showcase their interdependencies and their roles in S-E problem-solving. We have argued that teaching students a broad range of disciplinary content and skills and assuming students will come to recognize the interdisciplinary connections on their own will not suffice (Clark and Wallace 2015 ). Rather, those skills must be deeply embedded in a process of inquiry practiced in a context-rich way so that students can begin to see how all the pieces “fit together” into a whole way of thinking. Because our framework emphasizes the integration of content and process, it provides a unique and complimentary perspective to many other valuable frameworks for sustainability education (Wiek et al. 2011 ; Lozano et al. 2017 ; Sterling et al. 2017 , and Evans 2019 ).

As highlighted in articles by Lozano et al. ( 2017 ) and Shephard et al. ( 2019 ), there is an important need in sustainability education to move beyond the defining of sustainability competencies toward connecting such competencies with pedagogical approaches. Lozano et al. ( 2017 ) have developed a framework that maps various pedagogical approaches to a set of commonly defined sustainability competencies to highlight areas of overlap. One notable pedagogical approach that addresses eleven of the twelve competencies listed in their framework is the use of case study methods of teaching (Herreid 1994 ). Our own experiences match the spirit of this analysis, and we believe that the case study approach is a strong pedagogical approach for teaching students the competencies necessary for S-E problem-solving (Wei et al. 2015 , Wei et al. 2018 ). A deeper analysis of this and other promising pedagogies (e.g., Simon et al. 2013 ) is beyond the scope of this paper but merits strong attention. Knowing that different approaches leverage different strengths, we remain hopeful that such a comparative analysis will be tackled by scholars in the near future.

Another insight reflected in the framework is that the developmental process novices must undergo to achieve proficiency in S-E research and problem-solving is extensive. This cannot be achieved within the span of a single lesson or course but rather should be targeted as a long-term learning outcome of an intentionally designed curriculum. In this regard, the framework can serve as an evaluative lens that provides benchmarks for examining how pieces of a given curriculum fit within a whole programmatic effort to develop in students the kinds of thinking we describe.

The framework presented here emphasizes the importance of a holistic, integrative view of what students should learn by describing key competencies in the context of an S-E problem-solving process. The question of how students should learn these competencies is still an area that needs further attention, and we join others in calling for more educational research on this topic (Lozano et al. 2017 , Sterling et al. 2017 ). Our hope is that this framework and the pedagogical conversations it stimulates will contribute to the ultimate goal of increasing the effectiveness of curricular materials and instructional experiences designed to prepare students for the vital work of tackling complex socio-environmental problems.

Change history

01 august 2020.

The article A framework for teaching socio-environmental problem-solving, written by Cynthia A. Wei, Michael L. Deaton, Teresa J. Shume, Ramiro Berardo and William R. Burnside was originally published electronically on the publisher���s internet portal on 11 April 2020 without open access.

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Wei, C.A., Deaton, M.L., Shume, T.J. et al. A framework for teaching socio-environmental problem-solving. J Environ Stud Sci 10 , 467–477 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-020-00603-y

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Wole Hammond, Abuja Hub, Nigeria

Climate change has been on the front burner of global conversations. As a young person who is passionate about building a sustainable future for my generation and posterity, I am promoting awareness on the subject of climate change and advocating for a just-transition, that leaves no one behind, through multimedia storytelling.

Young people like myself are also taking action to address the climate crisis. Youths in Nigeria mobilized under the National Youth Climate Consultation to provide youth input into the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs). Yetunde Fadeyi is solving environmental and climate problems through renewable energy through REES Africa and Vectar Energy .

As the global race to net-zero is on, government, leaders, corporations and institutions must offer the necessary to assist youth-led solutions to scale climate action across the globe. This is why it is important to have programs such as the Youth Climate Action Challenge to harvest and support innovative ideas to build a green and sustainable world.

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Create equitable, sustainable food systems

Saskia Czimenga, Gaborone Hub, Botswana

The food systems that humanity is relying on today is one of the major causes of land cover change and emission of greenhouse gases. While we already know that this approach has devastating effects on biodiversity, ground water resources and soil nutrition, the effects of the climate crisis will add excessive stress to food security around the world, but especially for the most vulnerable communities.

From my personal experience in Lesotho, a small land-locked mountainous kingdom in southern Africa, I know that people cannot afford to buy food in the supermarkets but have lost their traditional way of subsistence farming through dam projects, urbanization and prolonged and extreme droughts. Through different networks I have learned that young people are demanding different food systems and are already working on developing such themselves. This is exciting.

My partner and I have ventured into permaculture and started a demonstration garden in his home village, and I recently brought together people from African countries to work towards a vision for a sustainable food system for the continent, inspired by the European Youth-led manifesto for better food systems.

Embed climate-positive concepts into production

Lucy Tong, Beijing Hub, China

Millennials are the generation that will witness the success or failure of humanity’s climate change mitigation. We want to be the decision-makers that shape the future we live in.

Climate change is a systematic revolution across all sectors of society, it requires both top-down and bottle-up measures. To ensure a sustainable transformation, one of the keys to success is designing circular – to embed climate-positive, socially-aware concepts into the root of the product.

At the Global Shaper Beijing hub, we want to explore the topic while making local impact. As part of the initiative Scale360°, the Beijing hub will invite local youth to identify tactics for the food industry to go circular through design thinking. Topic will include the prominent delivery services in China, the popular bandage-style packages for food, and the agriculture sector in the value chain. This would join the momentum for the transition to a circular economy in the factory of the world, China, and help the world move into a net-zero future.

Invest in nature at scale

Rafael Alonso, Mexico City Hub, Mexico

Humans have the systems, the knowledge, the technology. Nature has the regenerative capacity. To be of service for mother nature means to use our resources for good.

For the first time ever, we can work together, aligning incentives to really make a difference. Startups can use disruptive technologies such as satellite images, big data and remote sensors. Companies can commit to net zero, or even better, to nature positive production systems. Asset owners and asset managers can choose where to allocate their resources.

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This decade is crucial to green our investments and to invest in green opportunities. Imagine investing in a portfolio that restores vast amounts of grasslands in North America, effectively preventing desertification at scale. Further imagine entire systems changing agricultural practices around Latin America’s rainforests. Platforms such as Cultivo.Land can bring together all the relevant stakeholders to take bold action today. And other innovation efforts, such as the Youth Climate Action Challenge can help scale climate action even further. It’s time for the private sector to participate. Invest in nature today.

Take a circular approach

Hannah Ballard, Montreal Hub, Canada

We are facing a vast array of multidimensional global crises across the climate, social fabric, economy, geopolitical landscape and health systems of the world. Making change isn’t going to be easy, but if we commit to a truly circular approach, we could genuinely build a better, more inclusive system.

Why think circular when you can think doughnut? Kate Raworth’s "Doughtnut Economics" has led to a “Doughtnut Economy Action Lab” where activists can connect, reuse resources and share best practices. Local communities and governments are adopting the doughnut, from Amsterdam to Tokyo. By making the process of taking action more sustainable, activists are better able to sustain their efforts.

Just like a circle, connecting stakeholders enables transformative change. Citizens across the world want alternatives, and innovators are stepping up to meet their demands. In Southeast Asia, The Incubation Network runs initiatives to empower entrepreneurs to tackle plastic waste in their communities. In Canada, Kids Code Jeunesse launched the #kids2030 Challenge to educate the world’s youngest stakeholders about the climate crisis. Not content with learning, these young people are exploring their own solutions to address the problem.

By closing the circle to better utilize our resources and energy reserves, young activists have the potential to accelerate us into a better, more sustainable future. But to get there, they need support.

Student Engagement and Environmental Awareness : Gen Z and Ecocomposition

NANCY G. BARRÓN teaches courses on the rhetoric of sustainability, diversity, and climate change as well as professional writing. Her research interests include the rhetoric of sustainability, identity, culture, and transdisciplinary writing. She also designs student symposia and conferences for a public exchange of research findings.

SIBYLLE GRUBER is a teacher with the Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media Studies Program at Northern Arizona University. She has published on the positionalities of international faculty, feminist rhetoric, environmental literacy, and composition theories and practices. She teaches courses that focus on the social and cultural aspects of environmental literacy practices.

GAVIN HUFFMAN graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in English and a certificate in rhetoric. His research interests include the rhetoric of fear, sustainability, and the language of legislation.

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Nancy G. Barrón , Sibylle Gruber , Gavin Huffman; Student Engagement and Environmental Awareness : Gen Z and Ecocomposition . Environmental Humanities 1 March 2022; 14 (1): 219–232. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-9481528

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This article collaboration addresses the importance of contextualizing current climate change discussions in twenty-first-century ecocomposition classrooms. It specifically focuses on the practical significance of what students’ writing and research can accomplish in and outside the classroom, and on how student involvement in the research process can create spaces for new awareness and renewed interest in active engagement with climate change discussions. The article references student projects exhibited at ClimateCon 2020, including one project that focused on Rachel Carson’s ability to persevere despite the many challenges she faced. With ecocomposition as an entry point, the article shows the importance of continued education about the environment and climate change, getting involved with sustainable practices, engaging with environmental awareness campaigns, and, when needed, lobbying for readjusting corporate business practices to include sustainability efforts.

  • Starting the Conversation: Learning about the Environment in the Writing Classroom

Rachel Carson concludes “A Fable for Tomorrow,” published in her influential 1962 book, Silent Spring , by pointing out that “a grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.” 1 No longer a fable, tragedies include vast forest fires across the globe, hurricanes, floods, and global pandemics. These tragedies are also played out at a local level in northern Arizona where we as the study’s authors live, teach, and learn. Here, increased cancer rates on the Navajo reservation are associated with uranium mining, and a nearby forest fire cost the lives of nineteen firefighters. 2 These tragedies, and many like them, have caused ecoanxiety, ecophobia, and climate depression. 3 Students tell us that they feel powerless and paralyzed in the face of a rapidly advancing climate crisis. 4 Many young people have confirmed that their fears about climate change, quite similar to the fears about COVID-19, are connected to an uncertainty over what is yet to come, which, according to Caroline Hickman, a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, creates an “out-of-control feeling.” To address such debilitating experiences, Hickman argues, we need to take action, either individually or collectively, to create a sense of agency and reduce anxiety levels. 5

In this article we, as a collaboration between two professors and one undergraduate student, discuss the results of taking action and incorporating opportunities for contextualizing current climate change discussions. We show teachers how the principles of ecocomposition can be used to combine current narratives focused on fear and overwhelming anxiety about the climate crisis with a growing awareness, curiosity, and willingness to explore creative solutions to transform a currently unstable and uncertain future. Specifically, we focus on the practical significance of what students’ writing and research can accomplish, and on how student involvement in ClimateCon 2020, a collaborative student conference, can create spaces for new awareness and renewed interest in active engagement with climate change discussions. We conclude by pointing out the need to combine teacher, students, and citizen roles to create a call to action that expands current narratives about the environment and that realigns public opinion in favor of sustainability and climate change action. With ecocomposition as an entry point, we show that we can participate in education about the environment and climate change, get involved with sustainable practices, engage with environmental awareness campaigns, and, when needed, lobby for readjusting corporate business practices to include sustainability efforts.

  • The Reason for Ecocomposition and Environmental Awareness in the College Classroom

“Why isn’t there more of an outrage?” asked Maria Welch, a Navajo field researcher with the Southwest Research Information Center in an interview with Laurel Morales, a senior field correspondent for Fronteras Desk and NPR. 6 Welch, whose parents grew up next to uranium mines on the Navajo reservation and played in contaminated water, studies the impact of uranium mining on Navajo families today. Welch’s questions about the silence surrounding the environmental destruction caused by uranium mining are indicative of a history of discrimination faced by Native Americans, communities of color, and low-income communities. George McGraw, a human rights advocate and founder and CEO of DigDeep 7 —an organization that focuses on bringing running water to communities such as the Navajo Nation—puts it bluntly: “This is a community that has found themselves voiceless.” 8

Such voicelessness, and political, racial, and economic marginalization, are not new in the United States, nor are we surprised that the environmental struggles of communities of color, working-class communities, and communities considered to have little economic and political power are often left out from discussions on climate change. Nancy G. Barrón and Sibylle Gruber, both identifying as Gen X professors, embraced the challenge of breaking the silence and using ecocomposition to incorporate climate change into class discussions and to create ClimateCon, a public space to address environmental action opportunities. Gavin Huffman, a Gen Z English major who was enrolled in a capstone rhetoric and writing course and participated in an undergraduate research projects course, embraced the challenge to explore possible approaches to the environmental crisis and to provide insights from and for Gen Z students on how to move beyond feeling scared, angry, and overwhelmed. Barrón and Gruber have lived and worked for more than twenty years near the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona where they teach rhetoric, writing, and digital media studies through theory-based application projects grounded in ecocomposition practices. Huffman applied his rhetorical knowledge to discussions on climate change and sustainability that could lead to social change and action.

The increasing urgency of climate action, and growing student concerns about the environment, 9 encouraged Barrón and Gruber to focus three junior/senior-level rhetoric and writing courses on historical, local, national, and global discussions surrounding the environment and climate change, especially how they influenced Gen Z. We focused our teaching practices on principles of ecocomposition, 10 which emphasize the interdisciplinary nature and the “ecological pursuit” of writing, 11 in which any writing activity has to be seen in its historical, political, or ideological context. 12 We also incorporated process pedagogy, Paulo Freire’s concept of democratizing education and knowledge, and feminist principles as a way to “teach students an appreciation for diversity that can prepare educated citizens to shape and participate in a multicultural, democratic, and ecological society.” 13 Even though many of the studies on the impact of an ecocomposition curriculum on student learning focus on short-term results of specific situational practices, 14 we were encouraged to apply these practices in our own localized environments and contribute to the growing work of ecocomposition scholarship.

After students in previous rhetoric and writing courses told us about feeling paralyzed and powerless because of media portrayals of the current and impending climate crisis, we created course curricula and learning environments for three junior- and senior-level courses that focused on environmental literacy, climate change, and sustainability, and that also provided opportunities to map the connections between the environment and human actions. With this, “the ecological dimensions of selfhood,” in which “the whole spectrum of the nonhuman physical environment is embedded in each of our identities,” 15 became part of the curricula we introduced to students. The end results were student-directed projects that were focused on environmental developments and climate change actions, and that provided spaces for the “discovery and articulation” 16 needed to gain well-rounded knowledge about necessary educational approaches to climate change discussions.

In addition to providing students with a rhetorical foundation, 17 we introduced work by such authors as Rachel Carson, Ward Churchill, Barbara Kingsolver, and Winona LaDuke. 18 Our closeness to the Navajo Nation was especially important in our course design and in our decision to create spaces for transformative actions. Because of the social injustices and the unwillingness or inability by a normative system to communicate these injustices, many activists who live and work outside this normative system have experienced pushback and threats when trying to write about or discuss the cultural, political, social, and economic complexities of environmental developments. We incorporated texts that addressed environmental justice, the contributions of Indigenous peoples to climate discussions, and the need for a renaissance of thought that acknowledges Indigenous contributions to educational thought. 19

To our students, and to us as well, the opposition often seems insurmountable, and belittling comments, refusing to listen to arguments, undermining justified actions, and detracting from scientific facts have become politically accepted tactics. 20 To show that individuals and groups can participate in climate change action, we included talks on guerilla gardening in South Central Los Angeles, urban agriculture, and stories and podcasts on the impact of climate change on Native American communities. 21 We developed the course curricula with room for student input, and we encouraged them to bring in additional materials that they could introduce to their classmates. In each course, students worked on conceptualizing projects related to climate change. They also crafted a research paper with an action plan for countering climate change, and they developed a presentation that highlighted the rhetorical situation for creating the application project.

  • Gen Z Sensibilities and Transformative Action: The Need for Climate Change Discussions

When we first discussed creating a common space for students that would allow them to “build their own environmental ethics through a process of exploration,” 22 we saw it as an opportunity to expand classroom spaces and promote open discussions about normative systems, environmental racism, environmental policies, the climate crisis, and environmental activism. The contextual nature, and the importance of purpose and audience in ecocomposition, combined with a critical pedagogy that focuses on democratizing education and questioning ideologies, norms, and social conventions, provided the starting point for student explorations of how environmental concerns were and are being brought to the forefront of US consciousness. This way, education and knowledge, as Freire points out, are “processes of inquiry” 23 that create opportunities for developing critical consciousness and encourage us to reflect on and revise our pedagogical strategies. 24

The need for “a process of exploration” 25 and a place for “true reflection and action upon reality” 26 resulted in a collaborative research conference to provide students from the three redesigned junior- and senior-level rhetoric and writing courses a forum for public discussions on climate change action. Organized around panel discussions, poster presentations, and breakout sessions, ClimateCon provided many opportunities for focusing on the escalating climate crisis. Before the conference, students had read, discussed, and presented on sustainability, environmental justice, and climate change action as part of the weekly assignments. In addition, students in each class used their experiences as members of Gen Z to research a topic related to climate change, create a project that showed opportunities for transformative action, and present their findings at ClimateCon. The conference was designed for formal and informal interactions in a meaningful setting,” 27 with scheduled and “unscheduled” learning opportunities. These unscheduled learning opportunities, as Boyan Slat pointed out in his discussion of relaunching an unsuccessful ocean clean-up system, are part of revisiting failed attempts and creating spaces for future success. 28

We knew that ClimateCon had potential for encouraging students to see their work as an opportunity to influence a public audience and to engage in hopeful climate action in small and large ways. We were not prepared, however, for the overwhelming enthusiasm and the positive atmosphere that surrounded the event. The participation in brief panel discussions was animated and included sustainability in baseball, China’s garbage classification system, addressing climate denier arguments, and environmental narratives in game design. The conversations were even more dynamic when students mingled in the hallways of the Liberal Arts Building where participants elaborated on their posters, showed their videos on iPads, and provided details on three-dimensional projects, and where audience members surrounded presenters, asked questions, talked about their own experiences, and provided feedback on what they found especially eye-opening. A student’s project on “Growing Sustainability on Campus and Reducing Single-Waste Use” showed what specific campus efforts were already in place at Northern Arizona University, including the elimination of serving trays, the push for bringing your own drinking flasks, and the use of multi-use carry-out containers. This led to spirited debates on how these efforts could be advertised more fully and publicized across campus.

Audience members also practiced with a student-developed app called “Gamifying Sustainability,” and they provided suggestions on how to market the app to Gen Z. They wanted to know more about recycling and reducing carbon emissions on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, where climate change is no longer a far-off threat and rising sea levels are predicted to cause severe coastal flooding. The immediacy of the current climate crisis led to a brainstorming session that included possible individual actions of reducing single-car use, moving to sustainable eating practices, and encouraging social media use to create or join action networks. And because the presenter and the audience had learned about ecoanxiety and social media from another presenter, they were encouraged to discuss the futility of social media “dooms-scrolling,” an activity that many of them had engaged with. Instead, this presenter pointed out that information on Greta Thunberg’s commitment to climate strike actions and Fridays for Future were accessible because of social media, and that young people could easily find out about climate change actions because social media provided an easily available forum for distributing information.

In addition, posters on sustainable eating, fast fashion and sustainability, renewable energy on the Navajo Nation, sustainable gaming, the effects of climate change on wildlife, and generational differences in climate change discussions provided students with multiple opportunities to engage with one another and to show their knowledge of current discussions on climate change. As one student pointed out, her research on climate change and the discussions with the audience led her to further explore the connections between racial inequality, sustainability, and conservation efforts.

  • Gen Z and History: Contextualizing Climate Change Action

Many of the presentations encouraged spirited exchanges. We highlight one of them because it was especially influential in showing the need for remembering and addressing critical moments in history. Huffman, an undergraduate English major, decided to explore the life and work of Rachel Carson, a historical figure that he knew little about, and that most of Gen Z had never heard about. Huffman’s research, in other words, rediscovered Carson for Generation Z and showed why she was successful not only as a scientist but also as a writer whose personal and professional lives were far from ordinary. In this presentation, Huffman could show that Carson was able to apply her professional skills as a marine biologist and conservationist to change how we now understand the intricate connections between humans and natural environments, and how detrimental the use of pesticides is to the ecosystem. Specifically focusing on Rachel Carson and Silent Spring , with its attention to narrative style and scientific soundness, Huffman discovered that Carson, despite many adverse forces in her personal and professional life, gave voice to the concerns of many who suffered the effects of the chemical industry. His research, and his poster presentation at ClimateCon, were especially powerful as a way to reestablish Carson’s influence on current discussions on the environment and climate change.

Huffman’s enthusiasm, and the attention he received during ClimateCon, showed us that Carson’s life story and her writing on environmental pollution resonates with young adults. Carson’s ability to persevere because she believed that silence would be detrimental to the planet was especially powerful for Gen Z. Students related to Carson’s initial training as an English major, her literary publications that focused on the environment, and her studies in biology. Carson applied what Lloyd Bitzer called the rhetorical situation—“the nature of those contexts in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse.” 29 As Bitzer put it, and as Carson so skillfully shows us in Silent Spring , “rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action.” 30 Carson knew that her readers needed to be convinced that the current environmental damage affected the human and nonhuman world. She also knew that she needed to include more than scientists to create a widespread appreciation for the devastating impact of DDT on the environment. 31

One of the important points for Huffman to show was Carson’s seamless fusion of science and the art of storytelling to create a narrative that does not discriminate against the nonscientist and can be understood by a general audience. Her readers, he pointed out to his audience of Gen Z students, were able to imagine the urgency of Carson’s plea for preserving the earth. Instead of focusing on the separation of the arts and sciences, splitting audiences as specialists and nonspecialists, and creating divisions based on subject-knowledge, 32 he showed his peers that Carson focused her writing on multiple stakeholders with and without disciplinary knowledge.

Huffman wanted his audience to understand that Carson challenged readers of Silent Spring to take action. In Carson’s case, this meant that rather than simply informing the public that DDT was harmful to the environment and its inhabitants, she offered ways to combat it. Students who participated in the exchange pointed out that, without solutions to mitigate the dire predictions, Carson would not have been able to convince her audience that they can participate as change agents. They specifically pointed out Carson’s use of questions throughout the book, which encouraged readers to think more critically about the ways they are affecting the planet and how they can change the environmental narrative. In other words, students were particularly impressed that Carson was able to change her audience’s behaviors and become more environmentally conscious. Huffman and his Gen Z peers attributed this to Carson’s emphasis on showing her audience the possibility of a brighter future despite an uphill battle instead of presenting a doomsday narrative. Through the impassioned discussions in the hallway, students concluded that a solid argument, a well-written narrative, and a convincing presentation need to be followed by perseverance in the face of adversity, ridicule, and dismissal.

ClimateCon created an enthusiasm for participating in climate change action that the preceding class activities—readings, discussions, analytical writing exercises, and a proposal centered around climate change action—could not garner. Once students started to work on creating solutions for localized problems, an important point emphasized by Thomas Hothem in “Suburban Studies and College Writing,” 33 and after they received feedback from audience members at ClimateCon, their commitment to participating in climate change action increased. The final weeks in class were spent on refining their projects and writing a final paper that incorporated theory and application and that outlined the exigence for creating the project and the climate change action that students would embrace. The work they submitted showed engagement, a willingness to leave their comfort zones, and an ability to “shape a rhetorical position for themselves,” 34 and it helped them “acquire a sense of context with which to gauge their relationship to their surroundings, their backgrounds, their education, and hence their future.” 35

  • Changing Public Opinion: Hope for the Future of Gen Z

Young climate change activists are part of a global movement. Deborah Adegbile from Lagos, Nigeria; Ayakha Melithafa from Cape Town, South Africa; Greta Thunberg from Stockholm, Sweden; Alexandria Villaseñor from New York City; and Ridhima Pandey from Haridwar, India; are just a few of the engaged activists who organize protests, take legal action, and work with farmers affected by climate change. 36 When students learn about the commitment of their Gen Z contemporaries, and when they are encouraged to question “the shape of choices, the structure and distribution of power and authority, the participatory process of decision making,” 37 climate change discussions can become part of a participatory and transformative curriculum for Gen Z students. Instead of remaining a temporary academic exercise, using the principles of ecocomposition provided opportunities for students to see the connections between historical events and current discussions on climate change. Changing “doomsday scrolling” and doomsday narratives to narratives of opportunity prompted Barrón, Gruber, and Huffman to embrace the following motto for ClimateCon2020: “If we agree that today’s climate change crisis is human-made, then we can make the changes necessary to reverse it.” ClimateCon2020 showed that we could become agents of change, and that we could encourage those around us to move toward transformative action, whether it’s on a small or large scale. 38

This article is a reminder for teachers that we need to bring the principles of ecocomposition—“the study of the relationship between discourse, nature, environment, location, place” 39 —to the forefront of our teaching and learning environments. This is especially important when science is often discredited, politics is focused on a consumer mentality, and social media platforms are used to attack climate change activists. This Machiavellian approach to the environment—what can be described as a disinterest in ethical concerns by politicians and big corporations deploying power for their own gain—encourages complacency of the powerful. ClimateCon2020 provided the setting for expanding narratives about the environment, sustainability, and climate change. It encouraged a shift away from self- and media-induced lethargy to a belief that each one of us can and needs to participate in our fight for slowing climate change. As one student said, ClimateCon2020 “was about our futures and not about our homework.” To continue the momentum, it is important to promote ecological literacy by continuously creating spaces for public exchanges and by combining our roles as teachers and students with our roles as citizens to create a call to action that encourages an expansion of current narratives about the environment, changes our anthropocentric worldview, and begins to realign public opinion in favor of sustainability and climate change action. 40 With this article, we show that we can participate in continued education about the environment and climate change, get involved with sustainable practices, engage with environmental awareness campaigns, and, when needed, lobby for readjusting corporate business practices to include sustainability efforts.

We end this article by reminding our readers of Wangari Maathai, a 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt Movement who emphasizes the connections between environmental and social justice actions. As she put it in her Nobel Lecture: “I would like to call on young people to commit themselves to activities that contribute toward achieving their long-term dreams. They have the energy and creativity to shape a sustainable future. To the young people I say, you are a gift to your communities and indeed the world. You are our hope and our future.” 41 Our experiences confirm Maathai’s description of young people. Recent climate change actions such as Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, and Earthjustice 42 led by committed members across the globe show us that they have the strength and creativity needed to prompt global action on climate change. Our responsibilities as teachers and students include continuous critical and analytical learning about current climate change discussions to end an immoral silence and acknowledge environmental degradation as a social justice issue. With knowledge and understanding of the climate crisis, we are hopeful that we can participate in and design successful climate change action for a safer and healthier natural environment.

Carson, Silent Spring , 3 .

Steinbach, “Six Years Later.”  

See Estok, “Theorizing” ; Estok, “Introduction” ; Christman, “I Have a Dream” ; Alex and Deborah, “Ecophobia” ; Deyo, “Eophobia” ; and Pikhala, “Environmental Education.”  

See Plautz, “Environmental Burden” ; Richardson, “Climate Trauma” ; Wallace-Wells, Uninhabitable Earth .

See Nugent, “Terrified of Climate Change?”  

Morales, “For the Navajo Nation.”  

Dig Deep, “Our Work.”  

See, for example, Plautz, “Environmental Burden” ; Winston, “Young People Are Leading the Way.”  

See, for example, Dobrin, “Writing Takes Place” ; Weisser, “Ecocomposition and the Greening of Identity” ; Gaard, “Ecofeminism and Ecocomposition.”  

Dobrin, “Writing Takes Place,” 18 .

See Plevin, “Liberatory Positioning of Place” ; Hothem, “Suburban Studies and College Writing.”  

Gaard, “Ecofeminism and Ecocomposition,” 176 .

See Goggin and Waggoner, “Sustainable Development” ; Hembrough, “Engaging” ; Hembrough, “Case Study” ; Geary, “Writing about Wolves” ; Heiman, “Odd Topics.”  

Weisser, “Ecocomposition and the Greening of Identity,” 81 .

Gaard, “Ecofeminism and Ecocomposition,” 166 .

Bitzer, “Rhetorical Situation” ; Burke, Grammar of Motives ; Burke, “Ideology and Myth” ; hooks, Teaching ; Foucault, Discipline and Punish ; Anzaldúa, Borderlands .

Carson, Silent Spring ; Churchill, Struggle ; Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer ; LaDuke, All Our Relations .

See Kincheloe and Steinberg, “Indigenous Knowledges in Education” ; Battiste, “Struggle and Renaissance” ; Price, “Indigenous Leaders.”  

See, for example, Williams and Treadaway, “Exxon and the Valdez Accident” ; Whyte, “Dakota Access Pipeline” ; Nakamura and Wagner, “Trump Mocks Sixteen-Year-Old Greta Thunberg.”  

See Finley, “Guerrilla Gardener” ; Davison, “How Urban Agriculture” ; Carter, “Greening” ; Flatow, “How Native American Communities” ; Jones, “How Native Tribes” ; US Department of the Interior, “Climate Change” ; Laduzinsky, “Disproportionate Impact” ; Bryce, “Indigenous Leaders” ; Morales, “For the Navajo Nation” ; Whyte, “Dakota Access Pipeline” ; Ibrahim, “Indigenous Knowledge Meets Science.”  

Gaard, “Ecofeminism and Ecocomposition,” 174 .

Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed , 72 .

Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed , 84 .

Illich, Deschooling Society, 29 .

Slat, “System 001B.”  

Bitzer, “Rhetorical Situation,” 1 .

Bitzer, “Rhetorical Situation,” 4 .

See Griswold, “How Silent Spring Ignited” ; DeMarco, “Rachel Carson’s Environmental Ethic” ; Wills-Toker, “Environmental Rhetoric of Rachel Carson,” 293 .

See Gartner, “When Science Writing Becomes Literary Art.”  

Hothem, “Suburban Studies.”  

Hothem, “Suburban Studies,” 35 .

Hothem, “Suburban Studies,” 38 .

See Dillen, “Time to Listen” ; Reynolds, “Star Student on a Mission” ; Varagur, “Meet India’s Teen Climate Advocate” ; and Galvez-Robles, “Nineteen Youth Climate Activists” ; Leung, “Swedish Teen Climate Activist.”  

We acknowledge that organizing a conference and incorporating collaborative learning is not easy. We are full professors who do not teach a 5/5, and our research agenda includes the rhetoric of climate change, science writing, ecofeminism, and ecocomposition.

Dobrin, “Writing Takes Place,” 14 .

See Plumwood, “Androcentrism and Anthrocentrism” ; Plumwood, Environmental Culture ; Boddice, Anthropocentrism ; Quinn, Castéra, and Clément, “Teachers’ Conceptions of the Environment” ; Leonard, “Why Lakes and Rivers” ; Marchesini, Beyond Anthropocentrism ; Dobbins, Piga, and Manca, Environment, Social Justice .

Maathai, “Nobel Lecture.”  

Fridays for Future, “What We Do” ; Extinction Rebellion, “What Is XR?” ; Earthjustice, “Our Work.”  

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Climate action and sustainable development: what students can do

University of manchester student rachel grunnill shares ways that students can get involved with sustainable projects at their university.

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Rachel Grunnill

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Sustainability is becoming more important across the university sector and students today are increasingly engaged in tackling social and environmental issues and expect their university to do the same.

Here are just some ways that students can be part of the change.

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Research your university’s actions on sustainable development

A great place to start is to consider whether the institution where you will be investing your time and money is committed to sustainability itself, as well as what opportunities it provides to help live a more sustainable life.

As a recent student, I have found the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings to be a useful tool in comparing how sustainable a university is on a global scale. The rankings assess a university’s performance in delivering all 17 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using these rankings can be the first step in judging how committed a university is to becoming more sustainable.

Join student initiatives committed to promoting sustainability

Once you’ve chosen a university that aligns with your values, or you’ve decided you want to help your university on the path to sustainability, you should think about what kinds of activities and projects you’d like to be a part of. 

As a student, I carried out NUS Green Impact auditing – which taught me the skills to evaluate and support environmentally and socially sustainable practice on my own campus.

Get to know the principles of sustainability

It can be useful to consider sustainability as a concept covering three principles: society, the environment and the economy. By exploring these principles, you can figure out which area of sustainability you’re most interested in getting involved with and work from there.

When thinking about the environment, try searching what kinds of partnerships and research projects the university is involved in. Is there any way you can tailor your own assignments to focus on creating a greener world? For example, the University of Manchester has an Applied Sustainability Projects scheme, in collaboration with various NGOs, that allows students to address key challenges in the environmental and sustainability sector as part of their coursework.

Plenty of volunteering projects and student societies undertake environmental work, such as tree planting or re-wilding. Why not join one of these?

If you’d rather address sustainability in terms of the economy, how about taking steps towards more responsible spending and ethical investments? Instead of buying fast fashion from big retailers, how about spending your money in your local community? Does your university have any sustainable shops or clothes-swapping events you could go to?

Want Not Waste is a student-run, zero-waste shop on the University of Manchester ’s campus that was supported by the university to grow from a small stall operating out of our students’ union to owning its own independent unit. Student unions are great places for guidance, and sometimes even financial support, to help get your ideas off the ground.

The third principle to consider is society. You could volunteer your time mentoring or tutoring disadvantaged schoolchildren. These kinds of projects help reduce inequalities and enable access to education for all.

Are there modules or extracurricular courses that explore themes such as food insecurity, poverty or discrimination? While at university, I completed a series of Ethical Grand Challenges , which helped me understand how to address global issues such as racism and homelessness. If your university has similar courses, why not take the time to learn about these?

Student communities play an enormous role in addressing sustainability issues through campaigns, projects and committees. And if these don’t exist in your own university community, set them up! More often than not, plenty of students and staff alike will want to help create a positive impact.

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Taking an Interdisciplinary Approach to Environmental Science

Teachers in any content area can use project-based learning to explore environmental concerns with their students.

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In our work with schools, we’ve met many content area and elective teachers with an interest to learn more about environmental science (ES) because they love and care about the environment. They also want to pass this passion and know-how along to their students while not straying too far from their own instructional focus.

For example, an English language arts teacher may set up a project that has students advocate by writing letters to their local politicians offering solutions to environmental problems in their community. A social studies teacher may help students understand the legislative process through exploring landmark environmental laws or learning how state and federal governments work together to address issues affecting ecosystems in different parts of the United States.

Therefore, when we began writing our book, Environmental Science for Grades 6–12: A Project-Based Approach to Solving the Earth’s Most Urgent Problems , we set out to create a resource that both the ES and non-ES teacher could use to adapt projects that show the interdisciplinary nature of ES and at the same time appeal to diverse students.

For teachers wanting to try their hand at ES, we recommend having a solid understanding of the purpose of environmental education , which is to explore issues affecting the environment and work on solutions, while engaging students in projects where they learn about conservation, create calls to action, work with others, and solve environmental issues in their communities.

When planning learning experiences for students, we suggest that teachers select a relevant ES theme for their students, along with organizing student learning using three helpful frameworks:

1. Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) : A nationally adopted framework for science education that includes content standards and also highlights scientific practices as well as cross-cutting concepts that connect all four domains of science.

2. Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Integrated Framework for SEL : This framework for social and emotional learning helps students better understand themselves, their environment, and others by dividing knowledge, skills, and attitudes into five domains.

3. International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Students : These standards ensure that their lessons and units are focused on student empowerment by helping teachers design learning experiences to build the skills necessary for thriving in a digital world. 

Teachers can align with the three learning frameworks by developing well-crafted learning goals for ES projects organized around a theme that helps students solve critical environmental problems. Here’s how in two simple steps.

1. Select a Good Project Theme

A couple of good themes that provide powerful focal points to start with are projects involving ecosystems/ecology, or understanding the interactions between communities of organisms and their physical surroundings, and those that examine human impact on the environment and ways in which harms can be mitigated or prevented.

Ecosystems: Two foundational principles of ES are understanding the form and function of ecosystems and communicating complex scientific ideas in simple ways. Addressing these basics in a project on ecosystems and communication can build a strong foundation for more complex investigations in ES later. One great opportunity for combining these two concepts is through projects focused on investigating why some species are endangered , the factors that limit or disrupt the ecosystem services that may be at play, and what can be done to inspire others to advocate for positive changes. ELA teachers can help students craft a compelling call to action  that can assist them in understanding how communication is key to advocacy and engaging others.

Human impact: The role of government in enforcing environmental laws connects to social studies. Scientific illustrations or the design of informative and eye-catching infographics connect to the visual arts. And the process of managing natural resources and balancing the needs of our own society with those of other communities, both human and natural, creates opportunities in all sorts of other academic disciplines.

One concept that provides a gateway into many other subjects is biodiversity . Students can use math to calculate the rate of Atlantic cod depletion while they develop their reading skills through analyzing excerpts of Mark Kurlansky’s book Cod . Students from more urban settings might find greater authenticity analyzing publicly available data on the biodiversity of wildlife within their city parks, then creating infographics that display the predator-prey relationships that allow these populations to remain stable. Using this knowledge, they can either write persuasive pieces arguing for stronger action to protect fish populations or use multimedia technology tools and fine arts skills to create short-form infomercials.

2. Utilize Technology and SEL Skills

Both ecosystems and human impact can connect to the abovementioned learning frameworks in numerous ways. Through pointed scientific investigation, students have the opportunity to discover that environmental learning doesn’t have to be relegated only to science class. Here are some tips for teachers to consider when crafting their learning goals via learning targets.

With standards framed around human sustainability and managing natural resources, NGSS is a natural fit with ES. To complement the NGSS, teachers can use the ISTE Standards for Students to help learners integrate the appropriate use of edtech across projects. It’s also important to understand that the ISTE standards are not just about using technology to augment instruction—they were intentionally written to align with academic subjects. And now that computers and apps are part of everything we do, the standards are beneficial in helping learners to become global collaborators who can leverage technology to solve ES problems innovatively.

There is growing research to support the relationship between the causes and effects of experiences in nature and how they can contribute to children’s learning and their social and emotional well-being. The self-awareness competency in the CASEL integrated framework is an excellent vehicle for helping students understand their emotional responses and thereby strengthen their emotional intelligence skills. For this purpose, ES projects can be instrumental as they navigate their emotional intelligence journey.

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Brainstorming Ways to Solve Environmental Problems? 5 Simple Ways You Can Help

June 1, 2019

Home  /  News  /  Brainstorming Ways to Solve Environmental Problems? 5 Simple Ways You Can Help

We are currently facing the most critical environmental issues in human history. Our climate, planet, lives, and future as a civilization are all at risk. While the magnitude of that thought can be extremely overwhelming, don’t allow yourself to feel helpless, not knowing where to begin. Making small steps and adjustments in your daily routine will give you a sense of success and a yearning to attempt more.

Here are 5 simple ways you can help the environment and spark others to become more environmentally aware.

1. Replace disposable items with reusable

Anything you use and throw away can potentially spend centuries in a landfill. See below for simple adjustments you can make to decrease the amount of disposable items in your daily life.

  • Carry your own reusable cup or water bottle
  • Use airtight, reusable food containers instead of sandwich bags and plastic wrap
  • Pack a waste-free lunch: carry your utensils, cloth napkin, and containers in a reusable lunch bag
  • Bring your own bags to the grocery store
  • Consider buying bulk containers of your preferred beverages and refilling a reusable bottle, instead of buying individually packaged drinks
  • Use rechargeable batteries

2. Pass on paper

We are living in the Digital Era, but think about all the paper products you use in your daily life. These actions still align with reusing and repurposing, though may take a little more time for transition.

  • Join a library instead of buying books or buy a Kindle
  • Print as little as possible; and if you must, print on both sides
  • Wrap gifts in fabric and tie with ribbon; both are reusable and prettier than paper and sticky-tape
  • Stop using paper towels and incorporate washable cloths
  • Look at labels to make sure you only use FSC-certified wood and paper products
  • Cut out products made by palm oil companies that contribute to deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia

3. Conserve water & electricity

The tips you see below will seem like no-brainers; however, it may take to become more aware of your unconscious habits.

  • Turn the sink water off when brushing your teeth
  • Water the lawn in the morning or evening; cooler air causes less evaporation
  • Switch off anything that uses electricity when not in use (lights, televisions, computers, printers, etc.)
  • Unplug devices when possible; even when an appliance is turned off, it may still use power
  • Remove chemicals inside of the house; research companies that use plant-derived ingredients for their household cleaning products
  • Remove chemicals outside of the house; use eco-friendly pesticides and herbicides that won’t contaminate groundwater
  • Consider signing up for a renewable energy producer that uses 100% renewable energy to power homes

4. Support local & environmentally friendly

Here are a few reasons to start buying local:

  • Reduces plastic and paper waste
  • Boosts cost-efficiency
  • Enables bulk purchasing
  • Helps support your neighbors
  • Retains farmland within the community
  • Builds up the local economy
  • Uses fewer chemicals for both for growing and transporting

5. Recycle (& then recycle properly)

Implementing recycling habits into your daily life is one of the most effective ways to help lessen landfill waste, conserve natural resources, save habitats, reduce pollution, cut down on energy consumption, and slow down global warming.

  • Confirm you are using the proper separation containers for your household per the local recycling services
  • Remember to make sure your trash bags are recycled or biodegradable, and always cut up the plastic rings from packs of beer or soda to prevent wildlife from getting caught
  • Educate yourself about what can and cannot be recycled, as not all plastic and cardboard is acceptable (like pizza boxes for example, due to the grease) ( click here for a simple 101 )
  • Learn how to identify and dispose of hazardous waste properly ( click here to learn more )

Taking the time to simply read this article for ways to solve environmental problems is a step forward to becoming more aware of the needs of your environment. You are now taking action, and every change–big or small–will create an impact.

If you’re already taking action on the suggestions above, see below for additional tips and ideas:

  • Add these simple lists to your digital checklist and pick one at a time to tackle. After a week or so, check it off the list and move on to the next. Remember to pat yourself on the back! You just created a change in your lifestyle!
  • Find a comfortable compromise for your life. Purchase a pack of affordable, reusable rags and give them a specific purpose. For example, perhaps you always clean your countertops with paper towels; try wiping them down with cloth towels instead.
  • Remember to highlight your successes and share them with others! #savetheplanet
  • Calculate your environmental footprint to see how much impact just one person has on the world’s resources and adjust accordingly.
  • Consider an environmentally-focused career like one of the top four environmental jobs of the future.

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Article Contents

Managing complexity and valuing science, responding to demographic changes, responding to the new “geography of childhood”, activity-based learning, sidestepping the psychology of despair, references cited.

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Challenges for Environmental Education: Issues and Ideas for the 21st Century: Environmental education, a vital component of efforts to solve environmental problems, must stay relevant to the needs and interests of the community and yet constantly adapt to the rapidly changing social and technological landscape

Stewart J. Hudson is president of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, 290 Pratt Street, Meriden, CT 06450.

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Stewart J. Hudson, Challenges for Environmental Education: Issues and Ideas for the 21st Century: Environmental education, a vital component of efforts to solve environmental problems, must stay relevant to the needs and interests of the community and yet constantly adapt to the rapidly changing social and technological landscape, BioScience , Volume 51, Issue 4, April 2001, Pages 283–288, https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0283:CFEEIA]2.0.CO;2

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As we enter a new century and millennium, environmental educators must come up with new knowledge and techniques that address the demands of a constantly evolving social and technological landscape, while ensuring that environmental education stays relevant to the needs and interests of the community. These challenges to environmental education require that we reexamine the way we do research and train environmental professionals and educators, as well as the way we communicate environmental information to the general public.

Great strides have already been made in strengthening environmental education for the general public. This is particularly true in terms of defining environmental education and its objectives ( Ruskey and Wilkie 1994 ). In the past few years, the North American Association for Environmental Educators has spearheaded an effort to develop mechanisms both to strengthen standards for environmental education and to make it possible to achieve them. A solid base for environmental education already exists. In the United States, there are many leaders in the field, and these individuals have had an extraordinary impact on environmental education. There is also a plethora of organizations and material available for all age groups and most learning situations (see the box on p. 287), which can be incorporated in broad-based environmental education efforts to meet diverse needs. As scientists and educators, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to utilize and expand this resource base.

The way we plan today for public education on the environment will have dramatic effects on the future quality of life. Effective and meaningful environmental education is a challenge we must take seriously if we and future generations are to enjoy the benefits of our natural heritage. This article identifies some of the current and future challenges to environmental education in the United States and offers suggestions on how best to address them. Although some of the examples and education models involve freshwater systems, the concepts behind the educational strategies can be applied to most other environmental settings. Some of the information presented here may be applicable in other countries struggling with the challenges of environmental education.

Environmental problems have become increasingly difficult to understand and to evaluate, yet environmental issues are more often expressed in “sound bites” than explained by sound reasoning. Moreover, reasonable treatment of environmental concerns often falls prey to the political agendas of those who have a vested interest in an unsustainable, resource-extractive approach to economic development. The challenge, then, is to express the complexity of modern environmental issues in ways that are understandable and inviting, and at the same time to ensure that science continues to play an important role in explaining and evaluating environmental issues and in forging solutions to environmental problems.

For example, there is a large gap between what members of the general public hear and what they understand about environmental problems related to aquatic resources. Everyone knows that Americans are concerned about safe drinking water. However, a survey conducted by the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation (NEETF) showed that only “about one in four American adults knows that the leading cause of water pollution is surface water running off the land, from farm fields to city streets” ( NEETF 1997 ). In referring to “Consumer Confidence Reports” that will soon be provided by water companies and utilities, NEETF reports that “even if the bill-payer reads the report, its technical nature may be daunting” ( NEETF 1997 ).

Nor does the gap narrow for other environmental issues. Some measure of scientific acuity is necessary for comprehending these issues, and there is some evidence that the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in science and math education. As an article on the “ABCs of Science Education” reports, “Even our best and brightest are falling behind—the top scoring 20% of US eighth graders are taught what seventh graders are taught in high-scoring nations” ( Tibbets 1997–1998. .

Moreover, at times there have been efforts to “dumb down” the existing scientific underpinnings of environmental knowledge as a means of advancing an agenda that depends on an unsustainable, resource-extractive approach to economic development. This movement attacks environmental education almost across the board, claiming that the loss of biological diversity, declining health of aquatic resources, and human-induced climate change, among other issues, are not worth worrying about. The general thrust of these contrarian attacks is that there is no science behind the environmental concerns shared by a majority of the American public; additionally, the argument goes, environmental education materials that fail to point this out are unduly biased ( Manilov and Schwarz 1996–1997 ). Although this anti-ecoeducation movement has abated somewhat, it will always be a critical factor in shaping environmental education in the United States.

Environmental education must teach about science itself and about the use of the scientific method—an important supplement to belief systems and value judgments—to help evaluate and respond to environmental threats. Educational materials that omit the important role of science and the general rules of scientific inquiry are damaging to the field of environmental education.

The need to include science in educational efforts does not, however, excuse educators from the obligation to communicate in an understandable way that invites further inquiry from those who might be intimidated by scientifically complex subjects. The case of Pfiesteria is a good example. When the first reports came out about the effects of Pfiesteria on fish stocks and humans in and around the Chesapeake Bay and coastal North Carolina, this toxic organism quickly became a hot-button issue discussed in the form of sound bites in a variety of media sources. Those who knew the most about the subject (including JoAnn Burkholder, internationally recognized expert on Pfiesteria ) struggled valiantly both to express the problem in understandable terms and to identify areas of certainty and uncertainty. The National Wildlife Federation also became deeply involved in the issue; coverage in the organization's magazine and in activist materials was objective, backed by science, and communicated in understandable terms and, perhaps most important, in ways that invited further inquiry ( Broad 1997 , Carroll 1998 , Davis 1998 , Dolan 1998 ).

This last aspect of the Federation's involvement with the issue—the production of materials that both explain scientific inquiry and provide mechanisms for further exploration—is a critical component of environmental education. Various materials evidence this kind of approach, but two that deserve special mention are the National Wildlife Federation's NatureScope volumes Diving into Oceans and Wading into Wetlands ( Braus et al. 1989a , 1989b ). These publications describe activities that can help sharpen scientific learning skills and provide resources and suggestions for obtaining further information about aquatic resources. An extraordinary array of leading experts in the scientific community contributed to both volumes through the peer review process and editorial comment.

Science has provided the greatest evidence, to date, of the damage we have done and are doing to the planet. The need to rely on science to support environmental education programs and materials continues nonetheless, obligating scientists to learn new skills for communicating and making complex subjects understandable to the public.

Obviously, planning for environmental education must take into account significant demographic changes in the United States. What are those demographic trends, and how will they most likely affect the nature of environmental education? First, minority populations dominate population growth; the number of non-Hispanic whites is expected to begin declining in the third decade of this century. Another noteworthy demographic change, in addition to greater cultural diversity, is that the number of aging but active baby boomers will increase over the next several decades. A third important societal shift concerns the nature of the family—namely, changes in its traditional constitution and in the amount of time that family members spend with one another ( Crispell 1995 , Kate 1998 ).

An increasingly diverse society, larger numbers of older Americans, and family life that is geared around schedules rather than free time all have important implications for environmental education. Clearly, environmental education must be of interest to, and available to, diverse audiences. Fortunately, some pioneering efforts show how this process might be initiated. One of the nation's leading environmental education organizations, the National Audubon Society, has built a partnership with the United Negro College Fund and the CSX Corporation to create a scholarship program for minority students who wish to become more involved in environmental programming ( CSX Corporation 2001 ). The Earth Tomorrow program of the National Wildlife Federation is targeted specifically at inner-city, largely African–American, student populations, and a recent edition of the Federation's National Wildlife Week was issued in both Spanish and English ( Flicker 1998 , Rogers 1998 , Tunstall 1998 ). The Roots & Shoots program of the Jane Goodall Institute has adapted a curriculum packet for diverse audiences with the help of numerous local organizations in Los Angeles with a particular focus on at-risk and culturally diverse communities ( McCarty et al. 1998 ).

Designing programs for diverse audiences is not an easy process. It involves much more than mere linguistic translation, although language is important. It requires the involvement of the potential audiences in program design. Moreover, programs must be designed to be sustainable within the communities they seek to involve.

Other trends in US demographics—the rapidly aging population of the country and the harried nature of family life—also need to be addressed. The Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement (EASI) takes an interesting approach: It enlists senior citizens as well as young people to monitor the quality of aquatic resources in Pennsylvania and other states by appealing to their commitment to volunteerism and to the environment. (The EASI Web site is shown in the box on p. 287.)

In terms of reaching families, one of the strategies employed by the National Wildlife Federation is to create opportunities for parents and other caregivers and adult family members to interact with children through the NatureLink program, which was developed in conjunction with the Canon Clean Earth Campaign. Often associated with fishing and other uses of aquatic resources, the program has produced Natural Fun, a guide that suggests nature education activities that allow families to spend time together ( NWF 1997 ). What these and other outdoor-oriented programs share is an understanding that the constitution of families and the nature of “family time” have changed. Outdoor education programs in particular must be designed to provide opportunities for families with increasingly crowded schedules to spend time together. Most important, these programs have to be fun and engaging to compete with other demands on families' time, and their outcomes must be both obvious and rewarding to the program participants.

Demographic changes in the United States in the 21st century will dramatically change the potential audience for environmental education. If environmental education keeps pace with this changing audience, the overall environmental movement will benefit by staying relevant to future generations and by inspiring individuals to take action to conserve natural resources and protect the environment. Lessons learned in the United States may well prove useful in the growth of environmental education in other countries as well, particularly those concerning materials and programs that effectively reach ethnically and culturally diverse populations.

In a 1992 survey of fifth and sixth graders in the United States, 9 percent of the children said that they learned environmental information from home; 31 percent reported that they learned from school; and a majority, 53 percent, listed the media as their primary teacher. Such media-inspired children may become fierce in their desire to save condors and whales. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, for example, each May the children of as politically correct a group of yuppie parents as one is likely to find don the costumes of endangered animals for All Species Day and parade proudly through the downtown streets.... Contact with even common wild creatures has become rare for most American children.

The challenge this pattern presents is not to supplant newer information sources but to complement them with a menu of linked opportunities that promote a continuum of experience, as well as learning that incorporates outdoor education and hands-on activities.

In addition to serving the ends of environmental education, making an extra effort to promote outdoor experiences to a generation whose first encounter with a mouse is likely to be with the one sitting next to the computer is important for significant developmental reasons. Mary Rivkin (1995) , an expert in early childhood development and author of The Great Outdoors: Restoring Children's Right to Play Outside, believes that children have to experience nature directly in order to learn and develop in healthy, appropriate ways. The variety and richness of natural settings all contribute more than do manufactured indoor environments to physical, cognitive, and emotional development ( Rivkin 1995 ).

In short, the changed geography of childhood means that environmental education programs must provide a continuum of experiences from online to hands-on. The Animal Tracks program of the National Wildlife Federation ( NWF 2001 ) is one good example. A recently issued kit on water quality issues provides online resources, but it also suggests various activities, including the creation of aquatic habitats at schools that encourage hands-on, inquiry-based learning. This approach does not denigrate the newer sources of information; it merely ensures that they are part of a continuum that incorporates learning in nature as a necessary way of learning about nature. This philosophy is also evident in the programs of the Massachusetts Audubon Society (see the box on page 287), which couples its online and media-focused programming with more hands-on activities, such as those promoted in its Pondwatchers guide, a brochure about aquatic systems in the northeastern United States (Massachusetts Audubon Society n.d.).

This generation of children also gets more knowledge about nature from television documentaries than from actual experience of the natural world. That kind of change in the geography of childhood should not be taken as cause for attacking some incredibly valuable forms of educating people about the environment, including IMAX films, programming by the Discovery Channel and others, and online resources such as Jubilee's Journey, a CD-ROM available from the Jane Goodall Institute. Instead, there is ample opportunity for ensuring that educational materials relating to, say, aquatic resources couple traditional cognitive learning materials with hands-on experience, whether it involves water quality testing, restoration of streamside habitat, or the creation of wetlands as part of a schoolyard habitat project. Two organizations involved in this kind of work are the Izaak Walton League and the National Wildlife Federation.

One of the greatest challenges for education generally is to produce measurable results. Unfortunately, reaching this goal is neither easy nor devoid of the politics of testing and the endless philosophical debates over what constitutes marked increases in learning and knowledge. Environmental education, though not exempt from these issues, provides some exciting opportunities for enhancing learning, sharpening observation and problem-solving skills, and producing measurable outcomes.

A clear understanding of what we are educating our children for will give us guidelines on the structure of educational programs. There is a fair consensus among all involved in debates about educational reform that one of the principal goals of education is to enhance the ability of children to become productive members of society, as well as to advance a variety of skills that are productive for the development of children. It is in teaching children to become responsible and productive members of society that we are most likely to find significant and tangible benefits from environmental education.

In many school systems across the United States, students must devote a certain amount of time to community service as a prerequisite for graduation. This requirement is not something that is added to the learning experience for purely altruistic reasons, but rather because community service is part of the learning-by-doing philosophy that has guided US education for almost a century. Likewise, teaching about the environment is most effective if it incorporates activities that seek to produce tangible results.

For example, a number of organizations, including the Izaak Walton League, the Missouri Conservation Foundation, the Riverwatch Network, and GREEN (see the box on p. 287), have developed programs that involve children and adults in monitoring the environmental quality of streams and other bodies of water. Although testing water quality by itself does not directly enhance the environment, inevitably these programs lead to other results, such as streamside restoration, improved industrial practices, and policy changes, all of which deliver measurable and effective outcomes ( Middleton 1998 ). One very successful and widely used program for stream protection, restoration, and education, sponsored by the Izaak Walton League of America, is called Save Our Streams ( Middleton 2001 ).

Other programs, such as Cascadia Quest, which is based in Seattle, Washington, are even more closely focused on service activities. Indeed, Cascadia Quest students have restored salmon habitat, replanted eroded slopes, worked on urban streams, and made other improvements to water resources in and around the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in the world. The Roots & Shoots program of the Jane Goodall Institute also is service oriented: It requires participants to undertake activities to protect animals, enhance the environment, and help develop their local community. Activities in these three areas have helped enhance the quality of local aquatic resources on behalf of people, wildlife, and the environment ( Cascadia Quest 1997 ).

This kind of activity-based learning often produces economic as well as environmental benefits. For example, the Campus Ecology program of the National Wildlife Federation published a study entitled “Green Investment, Green Return.” The study lists projects undertaken on college campuses across the United States that both improve the environment and save money. These campus “greening” activities address problems ranging from water conservation to reductions in the use of pesticides and other toxic substances in landscaping and other campus activities. To reiterate, if one of the goals of education is to nurture the growth of productive members of society, then these kinds of programs are most certainly viable and valuable ( Keniry and Lyon 1998 ).

Effective education requires the recognition of appropriate and meaningful strategies to help students discover more about the natural world, assemble information and facts, and solve problems. Detailed analyses are needed to more fully evaluate different learning styles and different areas of knowledge. Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard University, posits several distinct types of intelligence, including one that relates directly to intelligence about the natural world. He therefore asserts the need to create different approaches to evaluate the impact of educational programs on these distinct forms of learning and knowledge.

Problem solving, for example, is an important, requisite objective of the educational process, and research by Gardner and others suggests that hands-on environmental activities are an effective means of enhancing problem-solving skills ( Knox 1995 ). Moreover, William Hammond, an environmental education expert, adds that a new approach to education and action “does not require the abandonment of technology and scientific rationality. It permits the blending of the best of the industrial modern world with the most useful and constructive post-industrial thought. When students are invited to move their education beyond the walls of the classroom and engage in genuine action, they are given the opportunity to synthesize knowledge, skill, and character; to test their preconceptions and misconceptions against real experience; and to learn both to follow and to lead as members of a learning organization” ( Hammond 1997 ).

As Hammond suggests, the positive benefits of hands-on learning can enhance students' ability to become more conversant with the array of new technologies now being developed. There are many exciting and successful programs already in place. The Roots & Shoots program provides recognition to clubs that work on substantial projects in three different areas—protecting the environment, caring for animals, and helping communities. The NatureLink program at the National Wildlife Federation calls for participants to complete an “Earth Pledge,” and the Federation's Schoolyard Habitat program measures its success in terms of the number of schools that create habitats on school grounds.

Environmental educators should embrace the need for results as a particular strength of environmental education, especially those programs that can produce materials and experiences that cover a broad range of hands-on learning. Environmental education can—must—lead from awareness to action. That message should be reflected in program design and implementation, as well as in the way environmental education is defined and valued.

Learning more about the environment generally means learning more about what we have done to the environment rather than what we have done to care for it. Although environmental education certainly requires learning about the resilience of nature, it is the catalog of harm that will seem most evident to educators and students over the next several decades. The danger is that this catalog of harm will contribute to a psychology of despair—a loss of hope for the future and a sense that we as individuals cannot make a difference. The danger of despair is especially true for would-be educators who have been in the environmental trenches fighting for years, even decades.

Without underestimating the magnitude of the environmental challenges that we face globally as well as locally, and while noting the limits to what can be accomplished in the short run, we must realize there are ways to sidestep the psychology of despair. One is to recognize those who are making a difference in the world, especially young people, and to celebrate their accomplishment. Two of the most socially responsible (and profitable) corporations that are doing just that are Stonyfield Farm of Manchester, New Hampshire, and Tom's of Maine. The Planet Protectors program of Stonyfield Farm recognizes the achievement of individuals who have made substantial contributions to environmental protection. Tom's offers a Lifetime Achiever's Award to individuals who benefit the environment.

Another important way to avoid the psychology of despair is to promote the belief that individual responsibility and action can make a difference. Certainly the extent of environmental harm that the world-renowned Jane Goodall has witnessed firsthand over the last 40 years would give her ample excuse to be downcast and pessimistic about the future. Nevertheless, while fully acknowledging the challenges before us, it is her message of hope that is one of the most effective and best remembered parts of her frequent lectures. In public venues around the world, Dr. Goodall demonstrates her point by offering examples of individuals who have made a difference. JoAnn Burkholder is a great example of the kind of person Dr. Goodall cites. Despite threats and intimidation from those who opposed her efforts—agricultural and other interests—Dr. Burkholder uncovered threats to aquatic resources through her codiscovery of Pfiesteria, a deadly bacterium. Burkholder continues to educate people across the country about this dangerous organism and the man-made pollution that allows Pfiesteria to flourish. Dr. Goodall's overall message is one of hope. She offers four forces that provide hope for the future: the power and creativity of the human brain to solve problems; the resiliency of nature once we approach it from a position of respect; the strength and vitality of young people around the world; and the indomitable human spirit ( Goodall 1999 ).

To become involved in respecting nature and protecting the environment over the long term, people need to have a sense of hope and gratification from environmental education. Building programs that merely catalog harm without advancing the sense that accomplishments can be made will not offer the kind of fun and enriching learning environment that creates a sustainable commitment to environmental protection. While the study of nature would be incomplete without discussing the threats to the natural world, an appreciation of nature should not be lacking in environmental education programs. It is teaching about the miracles of the natural world, more than anything else, that will engender a sustainable and creative learning environment.

Although great strides have been made in protecting aquatic resources, human population growth and industrial use will continue to pose significant challenges to the protection of these basic resources. While environmental education is sometimes characterized as “soft” and gets less attention than other aspects of environmental protection, it is through environmental education that future environmental advocates and problem solvers are created. To generate new leaders in the environmental field over the new century, and to foster the general public's knowledge and concern for the environment, environmental education should recognize and begin responding effectively to several major challenges. These include changes in demographics and experience, effective integration of newer sources of information with experiential learning opportunities, the effective communication of environmental issues to the public, and the avoidance of the psychology of despair.

Braus J . 1989a. Diving into Oceans. Vienna (VA): National Wildlife Federation.

Braus J . 1989b. Wading into Wetlands. Vienna (VA): National Wildlife Federation.

Broad WJ. . 1997. Battling the cell from hell. National Wildlife Magazine (August–September): 10.

Carroll G. . 1998. Are our coastal waters turning deadly? National Wildlife Magazine (April–May): 42.

Cascadia Quest . 1997. A World of Young Leaders in King County. Seattle (WA): Cascadia Quest.

Crispell D. . 1995. Generations to 2025. American Demographics (April).

CSX Corporation . 2001. CSX Scholars Program. (20 Mar 2001; www.csx.com/aboutus/employment/scholars ).

Davis C. . 1998. Pollution Paralysis. Vienna (VA): National Wildlife Federation.

Dolan K. . 1998. Saving Our Watersheds. Vienna (VA): National Wildlife Federation.

Flicker JD. . 1998. Building diversity at Audubon. Audubon (March–April).

Goodall J. . 1999. Reason for Hope. New York: Warner Books.

Hammond WF. . 1997 . Educating for action. Green Teacher . 50 : 7

Kate TN. . 1998. Two careers, one marriage. American Demographics (April).

Keniry J Lyon J. . 1998. Green Investment, Green Return. Vienna (VA): National Wildlife Federation.

Knox RA. . 1995. Brainchild. Boston Globe Magazine, 5 Nov, p. 23.

Manilov M Schwarz T. . 1996–1997. An assault on eco-education. Earth Island Journal (winter): 36.

McCarty J . 1998. Roots & Shoots LA. Washington (DC): Jane Goodall Institute.

Massachusetts Audubon Society. n.d . Pondwatchers: Guide to Ponds and Vernal Pools of Eastern North America. Lincoln (MA): Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Middleton JV. . 1998. Stream Doctor Project: Community Driven Stream Restoration. Presentation at workshop on Environmental Education Outreach for Aquatic Resource Conservation, ESA–ASLO meeting; June 1998; St. Louis, MO.

Middleton JV. . 2001 . The Stream Doctor Project: Community-driven stream restoration. BioScience . 51 : 293 – 296 .

Nabham GP Trimble S. . 1994. The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places. Boston (MA): Beacon Press.

[NEETF] National Environmental Education and Training Foundation . 1997. Annual Report. Washington (DC): NEETF.

[NWF] National Wildlife Federation . 1997. Natural Fun. Vienna (VA): National Wildlife Federation.

[NWF] National Wildlife Federation . 2001. Animal Tracks. (21 Mar 2001; www.nwf.org/animaltracks/index.html ).

Rivkin MS. . 1995. The Great Outdoors: Restoring Children's Right to Play Outside. New York: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Rogers CS. . 1998. Earth tomorrow: Meeting the urban challenges. Michigan Natural Resources Magazine (May–June).

Ruskey A Wilkie R. . 1994. Promoting Environmental Education. Stevens Point (WI): National Wildlife Federation and the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point Press.

Tibbets J. . 1997–1998 . The ABCs of science education. Coastal Heritage, South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium . 12 : 4

Tunstall M. . 1998. 1998. Nature's Web: Caring for the Land. Vienna (VA): National Wildlife Federation.

Among popular Web sites for information on environmental education are the following:

www.janegoodall.org

www.nwf.org

www.wwf.org

www.earthforce.org

www.naaee.org

www.easi.org

www.massaudubon.org

www.riverwatch.org

www.igc.apc.org/green

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  • PMC8956850.1 ; 2021 Apr 20
  • ➤ PMC8956850.2; 2021 Jul 21

Analysing students’ environmental awareness profile using strategic environmental assessment

Ahmad khoiri.

1 Department of Natural Science Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

2 Department of Physics Education, Universitas Sains Al Qur’an, Central Java, Indonesia

Widha Sunarno

3 Department of Physics Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

Sajidan Sajidan

4 Department of Biology Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

Sukarmin Sukarmin

Associated data, underlying data.

Figshare: Environmental Awareness Questionnaire Score through SEA Assessment. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13977707.v1 . 34

This project contains the raw data of student’s response.

Figshare: Environmental Awareness Result. Environmental Awareness Result. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14175563.v1 . 35

This project contains data that has analysed the scores obtained by each EA indicator, the actual score and the percentage.

Extended data

Figshare: Questionnaire for High School Student Environmental Awareness Profiles, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14254106 . 61

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).

Version Changes

Revised. amendments from version 1.

The new version of the article has been added to the section: 1) Introduction: delete the last paragraph moved to the method section. 2) Method: has added Table 1 regarding the distribution of research samples to clarify the sampling method and demographics of respondents based on gender and age, as well as the revised SEA instrument validation results to strengthen the instrument has met the valid criteria. 3) Conclusion: The environmental awareness category of students has been added.

Peer Review Summary

Background: Environmental awareness (EA) is a part of character education ignored by most students. This indifference tends to affect other students’ by not only in protecting and preserving the current environment but also in preventing and repairing the damage that occurs in the environment. This research analyses students' EA profile, based on the findings of LISREL 8.8 Confirmatory Factor Analysis.

Methods: Research subjects included 131 students from Senior High School State 1 Selomerto Wonosobo, Central Java Province, Indonesia. Based on the Slovin formula, the number of samples is representative of the total population (N: 185; error tolerance: 0.05). Data were collected through non-test questionnaires and observation of Strategic Environmental Awareness (SEA). Quantitative descriptive data analysis on EA indicators (Care, Curiosity, Critical, Dependability, Responsibility, and Local Wisdom).

Results: The EA profile of high school students was categorised sufficiently. This revealed the following results: a) the SEA instrument is effective in identifying students’ awareness about current environmental issues and meets model fit criteria (P-value 0.25>0.05; RMSEA 0.095; NFI 0.67); b) the SEA instrument is valid and reliable in accurately determining students’ EA profile; c) although the Responsibility profile was significant (t >1.96), other variables did not meet this significance criteria (EA 1a: ‘Care towards environmental damage’ under the Care profile; EA 3b: ‘Contributing towards preserving the environment’ under the Critical profile; and EA 6b: ‘Aware of local potentials’ under the Local Wisdom profile); d) evaluation of the expected changes in SEA is modified through an ethnoscience approach and the socioscientific issues strategy.

Conclusions: Students’ lack of awareness of the environment and understanding of their regional potential fails to contribute towards creating a sustainable environment. Profile analysis in exploring attitudes, values, and ethics towards the environment are important, as it helps recognize students’ behaviour.

Introduction

Human life cannot be separated from interactions with the environment. Rapid improvement of technology in various fields has left negative impacts on the environment. One such negative impact is environmental damage, which has led to decreased environmental quality. Hence the degradation of environmental conditions can worsen the development of science education. In addition, resources for environmental science learning are still limited. Despite being close to the surrounding environment, science learning is separated from its natural sources. Environmental issues remain under-studied and under-utilized in science learning. 1 , 2 For instance, how students study the environment has not been integrated into science learning. There is lack of sufficient action to protect the environment, such as taking responsibility, exploring the local wisdom in a particular area, and maintaining and managing the environment. 3 , 4 Taking care of the environment is an attitude that strives to prevent natural environmental damage, and is the best way to restore environmental damage.

Based on the results of a preliminary survey of 15 teachers and 256 high school students in Wonosobo District, Central Java, Indonesia in March 2020, 5 it is observed that schools have shown 75% progress in policies towards environmental awareness, 62% progress in terms of promoting curriculum-based environmental studies, 56% participatory-based development of environmental activities, and 55% management of environmentally friendly school support facilities. That research identified a low implementation of environment-based learning, resulting in a lack of environmental character for students. 5 , 6

Environmental care, as it has been taught in school, refers to definitions, terms, concepts, and knowledge about the natural environment. The absence of the implementation of contextual learning can limit meaningful experiences for students. Environmental care can be implemented if students develop relevant habits at home, at school, and in the community. This is the best way for schools to build environmentally friendly attitudes among students, that is, by integrating the environment into materials, methods, media, learning resources, and assessment. Hopefully, learning, combined with environmental care, can stir students’ concern for the environment and nature. 7

Students’ knowledge of the environment has been positively associated with their environmental care behaviour, which can abate environmental damage. Nurwidodo et al. 6 stated that students’ environmental care is low because there is a lack of intention to understand and study environmental problems. Therefore, teachers should facilitate students’ understanding of environmental issues in order to motivate them to addresses these problems. 8 However, teachers only focus on students’ academic performance and not on how students try to keep the school environment clean. 9 Therefore, strategic environmental awareness (SEA) analysis is essential so that students’ positive attitude towards environmental care can provide solutions to environmental problems.

Schools should use an effective instrument to communicate about environmental issues, since environmental care is a crucial issue, especially for students. Learning associated with environmental care can enhance students’ awareness of their environment and surroundings. Creating a healthy ecological system requires long-term efforts. 10 This is in congruence with Rahardjo’s 11 study, which showed that learning should focus on promoting students’ positive attitude towards the environment. 12

SEA assesses environmental care and measures the environment awareness (EA) of students. 1 , 13 , 14 Effective instruments should be valid and reliable. 15 , 16 Therefore, SEA instruments are required to measure EA skills. EA indicators are determined based on healthy environmental problems, policies in preserving the environment, and the long-term SEA program. 13 EA is incorporated in teaching Physics, including Care, Protection, and Conservation Component indicators. 1

Based on environmental care, 17 , 18 EA assumes conscious thought in managing the environment is a factor in protecting and maintaining the environment. 19 , 6 , 20 This does not only demonstrate the understanding of the natural environment but also the attitude, value, and, skills required to address environmental issues. 21 , 22 Environmental education enhances people’s knowledge and awareness about the environment and induces environmental care behaviour. 23 Phan Hoang and Kato 24 and Mei et al. 25 explain that knowledge and commitment are required to instigate EA. Students must gain knowledge and understanding of the fundamental environmental problems, which will initiate a change in attitude and awareness in their social life namely interactions with other humans and the surrounding environment. 20 , 26 , 27 The impact of the students’ low environmental care can be assessed by evaluating the sustainable impact on condition, health, comfort and environmental benefits. 28 – 30

In Indonesia, this attitude of caring for the environment has become integrated into academic culture. 6 The Adiwiyata program in schools seems to be separated from the environmental-based education curriculum, even though EA should be integrated into the students’ learning process of environment friendly characteristics. The current research focuses on the importance of analysing the profile of students’ EA in facing challenges of globalisation. The profile analysis is adapted from the SEA with a holistic role and paradigm aimed at not only developing a caring attitude, maintaining cleanliness, and preserving the environment, but also making a real contribution through policy recommendations, planning, and environmental programs for sustainable practices.

Based on previous literature, 23 , 25 EA has a broad connotation, and this not only relates to knowledge about the environment but also the attitudes, values, and skills needed to solve environmental issues, which facilitate the ability to carry out responsible civic behaviour. 22 , 31 Students have not acquired the skills needed to care for the environment, because teachers have not been able to facilitate the environment-based learning process effectively. Therefore, in this study, the researchers used SEA to perform a students’ profile analysis to address environmental problems.

Students from middle school that live between urban and rural areas were selected for this study. Researchers’ assumption is based on analysing the profile of students from Senior High School State 1 Selomerto Wonosobo, Central Java Province, to study the EA profile of high school students in Wonosobo Regency. To build environment friendly characteristics among high school students in the era of globalisation, environmental education is crucial. The increasingly sophisticated flow of globalization has eroded pre-existing traditions and cultures because all human life activities are based on technological literacy. 32 Thus, the EA profile of high school students will explain the lack of environmental awareness and care among students. Through an analysis of the findings, the criterion variable of each indicator, including those meeting and not meeting the Confirmatory Factor Analysis criteria, can be identified and a fair assessment of the solutions can be achieved.

Study design and participants

A survey was conducted among students from Senior High School State 1 Selomerto Wonosobo, Central Java Province, Indonesia. The sample was determined based on the purposive sampling technique, meeting the research criteria, that is, the family background of students who lived in the central area of the city who all had similar attributes in terms of cultural and environmental recognition.

The inclusion requirements of this study were as follows.

  • 1) Male and female students who are actively registered as students at Senior High School 1 Selomerto, Central Java Province, Indonesia.
  • 2) Willing to become informants.
  • 3) Physically and mentally healthy.
  • 4) Students’ responses are not influenced by the opinions of teachers, friends, guardians of students or others.
  • 5) Students in class 10-12 only.

A total of 143 students from the entire population in the school filled out the questionnaires after receiving a technical explanation from the researcher. Participation in this survey was voluntary, and no financial reward was offered. All survey procedures and data were guaranteed to be strictly confidential.

Sample size was determined based on the Slovin formula: n = N 1 + Ne 2 , where n is the number of samples; N is the total population ( N = 185); and e is error tolerance (5%). 33 The number of survey data represents the population with a minimum of 126 (131 > 126) samples collected. The total number of students was 143, and 131 gave complete responses. The research sampling distribution is presented in Table 1 .

Data collection

The questionnaire data collection process was adjusted to a 5-point Likert scale, namely: strongly agree, 5; agree, 4; neutral, 3; disagree, 2; and strongly disagree, 1.

The collected survey questionnaires had 131 complete responses out of a total 143 because 12 responses were incomplete and had to be deleted. Twelve samples had missing data, because they do not completely answer all the questions, and the remaining 54 samples were ignored because the sample size was reached.

A questionnaire and a SEA instrument (see Extended data 61 ) was used for data collection, consisting of 42 questions about environmental issues faced by the community. The questionnaire was filled in directly by students via the Google Form link ( https://bit.ly/2MXA4HY ) within a 2-month research period, from 8 April to 8 June 2020.

The profile of students’ environmental care attitudes was determined based on six EA indicators developed in the SEA instrument; each indicator had three sub-indicators. The assumption of EA is based on the conscious mind to regulate reason, which is a part of the attitude naturally forming social issues. 6 , 21 This implies not only knowledge of the environment but also the attitudes, values, and skills needed to responsibly solve environmental issues. 21 The indicators of students’ EA and the relevance of environmental learning are explained in Table 2 .

Data analysis

Quantitative descriptive data analysis was used to assess the students’ responses to the EA questionnaire. 34 A t-test using LISREL 8.8 Second-Order CFA was used to check the measurement results to ensure that there are no offending estimates (the values that exceed accepted limits) on the variables. The EA indicators observed in each latent variable fulfilled the analysis requirements by linking and matching sub-indicators and indicator, one indicator with another, and combining the criteria components on EA indicators into one SEA model.

LISREL 8.8 Second-Order CFA confirms variables based on factor analysis, so that students’ profiles are validly and reliably measured. The LISREL method was applied, and the results showed that output of solution standard in identifying the student’s EA profile problems are based on t-test scores, analyse expected changes to provide solutions, and provide recommendations based on results of the analysis. The LISREL 8.8 Second-Order CFA application identifies the relationship between complex environmental care attitude variables and the sub-indicators meeting statistical requirements. LISREL 8.8 Second-Order CFA analysis is very sensitive for ambiguous data and predicts every indicator of the question.

The dependence of one indicator’s data on other indicators may result in a mismatch, so the instrument was been validated by an expert in SEA instruments. The criteria for the validator of the SEA instrument are one environmental expert lecturer and one evaluation tool lecturer. The purpose of validation provides an assessment of the feasibility of the SEA instrument, and whether or not it can be used in the data collection process.

The revised SEA instrument validation are as follows.

  • • The instrument has been tested to find out content validation and construct validation on students' environmental awareness questionnaires and the results meet the valid criteria.
  • • Each question has presented social issues contextually to answer each question so that research focuses on environmental studies.
  • • The questionnaire grid has represented each indicator of the measured variable.

The instrument was been revised based on the validator’s suggestions with the final decision that the SEA instrument is suitable for measuring students’ EA profiles.

LISREL software is proprietary software; a freely available alternative software that can be used to perform the same analysis is lavaan: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lavaan/ .

Ethical considerations

The Universitas Sebelas Maret Surakarta gave permission for the study to be conducted on 7 th January 2020 (letter number 40/UN27.02.9.2/DP/2020). This research was also approved by the Senior High School State 1 Selomerto, Wonosobo, Central Java Province, Indonesia (letter number 800/208/2020; dated 8 April 2020).

Written consent to participate was obtained from students, student guardians, and the principals of participating schools. If consent from student guardians was not obtained, the student was not allowed to participate. Respondents provided consent without any coercion from anyone. All forms of data obtained will remain confidential to protect the rights and privacy of the respondents.

The number of potential respondents who met the sample requirements was 143, but in the research process there were 12 students who did not give a complete response. Therefore, the data that were analysed were 131 respondents who gave complete answers. The results for the respondents’ answers to the questionnaire and observation of students’ EA profile 35 are shown in Figure 1 .

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Based on Figure 1 , the observation variable (indicator) has a larger value of convergent validity (factor loading) than 0.5; the fit model in P-value is 0.25>0.05; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) is 0.088; and Normed Fit Index (NFI) is 0.67. The value of the loading factor in indicators A1, A3, and A5 <0.5 and for indicators A2, A4 and A6 >0.5. The t-value is <1.96, so it fulfils the significance criteria. The results show that for indicators Care (EA I), Curiosity (EA 2), Critical (EA 3), Dependability (EA 4), Responsibility (EA 5), and Local wisdom (EA 6), the SEA instrument is valid. Therefore, the SEA instrument is valid and reliable to measure senior high school students’ EA. The development of the SEA instrument can be used as a standard measuring instrument to determine students’ EA through physical learning about temperature, heat, and global warming. The results of the t-value are presented in Table 3 .

Table 3 shows that the Care sub-indicator (EA 1a) does not fulfil the significance criteria 0.46 or less than 1.96 (0.46<1.96). The sentence needs to be revised from ‘care the environment’ to ‘Care towards environmental damage’. During testing of the questionnaire, there were sentences in the Care sub-indicator that were unclear. Therefore, it was necessary to revise the sentence about environmental damage by providing an example of an unpleasant smell in the Sikidang Crater area – this has been previously shown to worsen the health of society and requires global environmental care.

The Critical sub-indicator (EA 3b) does not fulfil the loading factor; it only amounts to 0.64. ‘Contributing towards preserving the environment’ as a form of critical thinking on environmental problems. The example given on the questionnaire was PranotoMongso, which has disappeared today because farmers in Dieng use a modern system of agriculture, using plastics on agricultural land ( Figure 3 ). The farmers do not realise that the use of chemical fertilisers and modern farming tools is not environment friendly, and can harm the fertility of the land and destroy the ecosystem.

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The Local Wisdom sub indicator (EA 6b) did not fulfil the factor loading 0,03. Therefore, re-evaluation is needed to obtain a good profile of EA. For the ‘aware of local potential’ indicator, the capability to understand the local potential and conserve local potential that does not match the indicator criteria. The example given on the questionnaire was the dew phenomenon or ‘Embun Upas’, as shown in Figure 2 (discussed further below). Due to the cold at night and freezing dew in several plateaus in Indonesia, like in Dieng, is caused by meteorological conditions and dry season. Java is now at the top of the dry season, which can be observed from the fact that several mountains have 0°C. This is because the air molecules in mountainous areas are more tenuous than the lowlands; they experience rapid cooling, especially when the weather is clear and not covered by clouds or rain, and water vapour in the air at night leads to condensation, sticking to leaves or grass and immediately freezing because of the temperatures.

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Three profiles are not qualified with a t-value of less than 1.96 from six indicators with three sub-indicators. There are 18 sub-indicators of EA with t-values in the highest responsibility indicators (EA 5a). It is a ‘Response towards the dangers of environmental damage’. The students agree that the environment is a part of their lives and must be protected and preserved. Science subjects and culture must be included in learning at school.

The care indicator (EA 1a) ‘care towards environmental damage’, critical indicator (EA 3b) ‘Contributing towards preserving the environment’, and local wisdom sub-indicator (EA 6b) to ‘Aware of local potentials’ are not fulfilled. The lack of EA and understanding about the potential make students unaware of the need to protect the environment, even though they know about the dangers of environmental damage. This means that students must have environmental care attitudes to initiate a reciprocation between students and nature. The profile of school students’ EA is good. However, it needs to be improved through the result of the expected change second-order CFA analysis. Furthermore, analysis of the suitability of the SEA model used in measuring students’ EA profiles is presented in Table 4 .

The potential of the EA instrument is expected to be changed and revised in terms of measuring every good indicator from changes to the sentence on the questionnaire to make it clearer so that the research results are valid.

Based on the result of descriptive counting, for environmental care data, the scores ranged from 59.4 sub-indicator ‘contributes towards environmental sustainability’ to 83.0 in the sub-indicator ‘know about preserving the environment’ as shown in Figure 4 .

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Based on Figure 4 , the environmental care of students show the value 72.4 on an average in ‘enough category’, with the highest indicator score for ‘local wisdom’ (75.4). Meanwhile, ‘curiosity’ has the lowest score (69.7). This is shown in Figure 5 .

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The value of the dominant tendency profile of environmental care is in the sufficient category with a score of 72.4 on average. Therefore, further analysis is required to identify sub-indicators that fulfil or do not fulfil the criteria determined in the SEA instrument.

The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed an evaluation of the goodness of fit, t-value, and the expected change in identifying the EA profile of high school students. The change in the EA indicator ( Table 4 ) is a crucial factor for creating a strategy to deal with environmental issues in society. The context-based learning benefits students and enhances their awareness regarding cultural preservation. 38

The importance of strategy in an environment-based teaching model, while respecting local culture, is an ethnoscience approach. Ethnoscience is used as a reference to equip students with knowledge and character so that they respect their culture ( Figure 2 and Figure 3 ). Ethnoscience learning is a means of self-development, increasing awareness to participate in preserving the environment and cultural traditions. This component has been shown in ethnoscience-based learning to improve students’ EA. 1 , 6 Unfortunately, technology is becoming increasingly advanced and literacy has failed to improve social behaviour. Besides the effect on the education system that utilizes formal science from indigenous knowledge in the form of customs, local wisdom, and cultural traditions as learning resources, high school students do not focus on their interactions with the environment. 35 , 36 The primary source of knowledge that can be effectively obtained is through direct interaction between students and nature, as opposed to studying concepts in classrooms.

Ethnography-based teaching will improve student’s skills in science, respect their achievements, and improve their skills to implement their knowledge. Through this teaching method, students’ understanding of science in a cultural context will be improved since they directly learn about the environment. Therefore, they will have a curiosity for, and give attention to, customs and culture. Thus, teaching improves their creativity. 41

Socioscientific issues (SSI) based on SEA is a teaching strategy that explains science subjects in terms of social problems involving moral or attitude components. 39 , 40 SSI is a common conceptual or procedural problem related to science and has a rational solution, influenced by social aspects, such as culture, politics, economy, and ethics. 39 , 41 The involvement of social aspects in SSI provides an opportunity to create conflict between scientific and social perspectives. Teaching can help develop moral reasoning and reflective assessment skills in terms of problem-solving. 39 , 40 , 42

Environmental education impacts society by enhancing students’ awareness of the environment. 7 , 43 , 44 To integrate the ethnography approach as a source of science teaching in high schools using the SSI strategy to empower EA related to environmental damage uses a strategic environmental study 48 in terms of learning. 49

A contextual aspect is required in environmental learning, since the scope of the problem is related to daily life, which pertains not only to knowledge but also to attitudes and skills to solve environmental issues. 50 One of the potential learning strategies that can be implemented is SSI.

Culture, as a part of the social life for different generations, also requires attention. Based on the purpose of learning to enhance students’ knowledge and understanding about life through values and attitude, 51 the transition of students into future physics teachers requires excellent preparation.

Skills can be gained from an ethnoscience learning model. Ethnoscience improves students’ knowledge and develops local wisdom and uses formal physics teaching as a source of learning in universities, where ethnoscience is a form of experience and culture. 41 Further, it can improve students’ capabilities to implement their scientific knowledge.

The quality of science learning that reflects the social context as an environmental problem is indicated by the existence of authentic topics or issues that develop in society. The topic is relevant if students’ decisions influence their present and future lives. The science learning curriculum is reflected to point them in the direction of the impact. Moreover, SSI evaluation makes solving problems possible from various perspectives. An open discussion in specific forums helps students to understand social problems that develop, except for religious or ethnic issues.

Further, analysing science and technology as a tool for teaching, raises an informal logical question, which relates to scientific fact. It is explained either explicitly or implicitly as an argumentation subject. 52 , 53 Therefore, the environmental-based science teaching process is more valuable than pure experimental activities. 38 , 54 To design teaching based on socio-cultural problems, teachers need scientific knowledge and consideration of the social aspect. In addition, teachers also need to realise that in terms of teaching, there are uncertainties in the class. They must realise that teaching is not the only way to assert authority. 55

Teaching based on ethnoscience improves students’ skills, which are required to process science, appreciate, and protect the environment. The student also learns to use their scientific knowledge. 40 Through this method, every student will understand the concepts of science in cultural context, since they learn directly from the environment. 56 Therefore, there is a student’s curiosity and concern for the customs and culture that are learned to shape students’ environmental care profile, using strategic environmental studies, facilitated by modifying the ethnoscience approach to explore local potential, customs, and culture, which is crucial. Meanwhile, SSI is used to help them gain the knowledge to identify current issues in society and provide a positive response, protect the environment from danger, and understand and appreciate the local wisdom.

EA is shown based on awareness, protection, and preservation, especially unfulfilled local potential. 4 , 5 , 21 This study contributes to a critical analysis of EA profiles through LISREL Second-order CFA by revealing latent variables or indicators ( Figure 1 and Tables 3-4 ) that affect other indicators. The factor analysis indicates that the students’ environmental care attitude is not only limited to caring, appreciating, and having good environmental ethics, but also includes making a real contribution and finding solutions to environmental problems that are integrated into the learning process.

There are rapid changes in the social behaviour, and the roles of humans are increasingly being replaced by sophisticated digitalization systems. 45 , 54 , 55 Students are becoming increasingly indifferent about preservation of their surrounding environment. 8 , 9 To avoid this, incorporating students’ direct experience acts as a useful learning resource, compared with learning where students only experience abstract concepts. Therefore, concerns about advances in technological literacy and culture, leading to an abandonment of environment in society can be resolved. Environmental literacy and competence are actively dedicated towards solving problems in human–environment interactions in an ecological and humanist way. The higher purpose is to balance the quality of life and the quality of the environment, with non-formal training in improving environmental literacy. 58

Filho 59 explains that the perspective of life is the basis for moral formation and has a very complicated relationship with EA, environmental knowledge, and human behaviour. Simultaneously, our study holistically analyses the profile of students’ EA by considering policies, plans, and environmentally sustainable programs. Furthermore, according to Murniawaty 5 and Widodo, 60 knowledge and commitment are needed to realise environmental protection and awareness, but they have not revealed how practical solutions can be used to implement them.

Based on the results of our analysis, the limitation of the study lies in the student bias data, namely the results are the same between the answers to ‘positive’ statements and ‘negative’ statements. It is assumed that there are irresponsible student answers. The results of this data cause several indicators and sub indicators to be not fulfilled ( Figures 4 and ​ and5). 5 ). Furthermore, individually interviewing every student was not possible due to limited time and research costs. The study is significant in the sense that it illustrates how an increase in students’ EA profile can be determined through the interpretation of the LISREL 8.8 second-order CFA analysis, influenced by the relationship between EA indicators and sub-indicators with standardised SEA. Research recommendations in the form of measuring the EA profile of students using SEA are appropriate for considering the implementation of environmental education, integrated with ethnoscience and issues that develop in society. These are attained while realising the character of students who care for and respect the environment.

Conclusions

The profile of environmental awareness (EA) of high school students is in the sufficient category with a Care indicator (EA 1a). ‘Care towards environmental damage’, Critical (EA 3b), ‘Contributing towards preserving the environment’, and Local wisdom (EA 6b) to ‘Aware of local potentials’ are not fulfilled. Their lack of EA and understanding of potential fails to contribute to the environment. Their responses to environmental damage are good. It is highly necessary to implement SEA, which is modified with the ethnoscience approach and environmental issues strategy to build the character of students so that they develop an awareness of their environment. Further research should be conducted to study its contributions towards EA students who not only appreciate regional potential and ethics in ethnoscience studies but can also find real solutions to environmental problems with the socioscientific issues strategy. Furthermore, the synergy between teachers, students, and policymakers in the implementation of environment-based education is crucial for realising character through student EA.

Data availability

Acknowledgments.

The research team would like to thank Senior High School State 1 Selomerto, Wonosobo, Central Java Province, Indonesia for the ethical approval of the research. Furthermore, we wish to thank the academic community of Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia, who have contributed ideas for the success of this research.

[version 2; peer review: 2 approved

Funding Statement

The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work.

Reviewer response for version 2

Montserrat franquesa-soler.

1 Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP), Puebla, Mexico

In general, the Introduction lacks organization. From the more general and international information to more concrete and national (regional/local) information. The last paragraph should provide a strong justification of the study, and methods. In the end, clearly state the Main Goal and Particular Goals.

Details of Introduction: 

Some statements would need citations (second sentence and third sentences). For the first sentence, I suggest including the Socioecosystem paradigm/approach in the Introduction briefly, here is an article as a reference 1 . The three first sentences are not well connected. The degradation of environmental conditions can worsen the development of science education - how? I think the contents of science education need to be updated and focused and these new dynamics that the Planet is undergoing (e.g., environmental impact and how through science this situation can be tackled). 

"Environmental issues remain under-studied and under-utilized in science learning"  - I do not agree with the first part of the sentence, because there is indeed research focused on environmental issues in science learning. I suggest authors double-check the literature and incorporate these findings. E.g., Litteldyke, M. (1997) , Littledyke, M. (2008) 2 ,  Zhongming, Z., Linong, L., Xiaona, Y., Wangqiang, Z., & Wei, L. (2021) . 

"Environmental care, as it has been taught in school, refers to definitions, terms, concepts, and knowledge about the natural environment" -  according to who? citation missing.

Details of methods:

There are some statements that belong to the Introduction. For E.g. "To build environment-friendly characteristics among high school students in the era of globalization, environmental education is crucial. The increasingly sophisticated flow of globalization has eroded pre-existing traditions and cultures because all human life activities are based on technological literacy".

Study design:  The percentage of masculine/feminine/age groups is missing.

Details of Discussion and Conclusion:

I suggest including Participatory Action Research 3 topic to enrich some parts of the recommendations and next steps in this research.

Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?

If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?

I cannot comment. A qualified statistician is required.

Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?

Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?

Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?

Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?

Reviewer Expertise:

Environmental Education; Participatory Action Research, Sustainability in Higher Education; Environmental perceptions; Primate Conservation

I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above.

Ebtsam Aly Abou Hashish

1 Nursing Administration Department, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt

Thanks for the opportunity to review this interesting paper. Generally, it is a well-written paper, and it gets better after review.

Consider the few following comments:

  • Write the complete name for the first time.
  • Write the type of sample (purposive).

  Methods:

  • A descriptive survey design.
  • Non-test questionnaires - What do you mean by this?
  • "Quantitative descriptive data analysis on EA indicators (Care, Curiosity, Critical, Dependability, Responsibility, and Local Wisdom)" - Add 'was done' to the end of the sentence.

Write the name of the questionnaire, developer and year, how many dimensions and how many items for each dimension, the scale and the score, reliability alpha.

  • Add the demographic form and include items for your tool.
  • Where is the validity and reliability of the tool used?
  • Did you conduct a pre-test or pilot study for your tool?
  • Again, for data analysis, LISREL: write completely for the first time, then use the abbreviation.

Conclusion:

  • Include a clear strategy for increasing EA.

Nursing research - education, leadership and management - education- ethics

I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard.

Sarwi Sarwi

1 Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia

The revision is in accordance with everything suggested by the reviewer. After I looked at he published revision of the article it, I gave my approval to be indexed.

The exact sciences, environmental sciences, innovative science learning

Reviewer response for version 1

Latifah abd manaf.

1 Department of Environment, Faculty of Forestry and Environment, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia

Some changes:

  • Conflict statement in the abstract (part results and conclusion) regarding students’ awareness.
  • The last paragraph in the introduction section is a method part, this can be removed.
  • Discussion about the students as the respondents should be in the method part. Rearrange.
  • Add info on the sample distribution in the table and add more discussion on the sampling method for the respondent selection.
  • Add more discussion on the instrument validation and pilot study.
  • Questions for each indicator were only 3? Is it valid to evaluate the SEA?
  • Information on the demographic background of respondents must be in the Table and discuss.
  • It’s better to discuss the results directly by supporting them with references, instead of putting them under a separate section.
  • Figure 4 and 5 is a result part.
  • The conclusion can be improved.

Q.1: Conflict statement in the abstract (part results and conclusion) regarding students’ awareness.

A.1: The EA profile of high school students was categorised sufficiently. Conclusions: Students’ lack of awareness of the environment and understanding of their regional potential fails to contribute towards creating a sustainable environment. 

Q.2: The last paragraph in the introduction section is a method part, this can be removed.

A.2: The last paragraph has been moved to the methods section.

Q.3: Discussion about the students as the respondents should be in the method part. Rearrange.

A.3: Respondents have been described in the Study design and participants section.

Q.4: Add info on the sample distribution in the table and add more discussion on the sampling method for the respondent selection.

A.4: Table 1 has been added regarding the research sampling distribution.

Q.5: Add more discussion on the instrument validation and pilot study.

A.5: Added, The results of the revised SEA instrument validation are as follows.

  • The instrument has been tested to find out content validation and construct validation on students' environmental awareness questionnaires and the results meet the valid criteria.
  • Each question has presented social issues contextually to answer each question so that research focuses on environmental studies.
  • The questionnaire grid has represented each indicator of the measured variable.

Q.6: Questions for each indicator were only 3? Is it valid to evaluate the SEA?

A.6: A valid criterion instrument that has been tested based on expert judgment and instrument testing.

Q.7: Information on the demographic background of respondents must be in the Table and discuss.

A.7: Added to table 1 about demographics of respondents based on gender were 44% male and 56% female. Age range 15-19 years with details of age 15 years, 26%; 16 years, 44%; 17 years, 24%; 18 years, 4%; and 19 years, 2%.

Q.8: It’s better to discuss the results directly by supporting them with references, instead of putting them under a separate section.

A.8: the article has been adapted to the journal guidelines for separate results and discussion.

Q.9: Figures 4 and 5 is the result part.

A.9: Figures 4 and 5 have been presented in the results section.

Q.10: The conclusion can be improved.

A.10: The conclusion has answered the research objectives and provided recommendations, added the criteria for the category of student environmental awareness are sufficient category.

Abstract, please add: Purpose is expressed in an operational sentence to reveal the topic referred to the title of the manuscript. Operational disclosure is required because it affects the adequacy of the required data.

​​​​​​Research discussing the importance of environmental issues associated with high school student attitudes is an interesting topic in education. The writing uses relevant and > 90% up-to-date article citations, according to the topics discussed. Please add: The theoretical framework that supports research is built so that the direction of the research is clear so that problems can be resolved.

The research design is appropriate, but qualitative data are still needed regarding the responses and results of in-depth interviews from respondents to answer research problems. The results of the research have good academic achievement, especially for high school and equivalent education levels.

Students from middle school that live between urban and rural areas were selected for this study (10 th paragraph). Writing of that sentence in the text by the author is unclear, and even tends to have opposite meanings.

Methods: The number of public high schools in Wonosobo Regency which are located in downtown or urban areas is at least 4 schools. Based on this data, it is necessary to refine or reconsider the subject or source of research data.

Statistical analysis and interpretation can be applied in other institutions provided they have the same characteristics. However, it is still necessary to discuss aspects of attitude EA with low scores, why?

All data sources are available and can be used to ensure full reproducibility. There is a review that the data on the figure illustration (Figure 2 and Figure 3) is too large so that it is needs revision.

The conclusions drawn are supported by the results of data processing. Data processing requirements are adjusted to written objectives in an operational and measurable manner.

References are used both as a guide for the path of ideas (state of the arts) and discussion. Reference is up to date and applicable to the problem.

Q.1:  Abstract, please add: Purpose is expressed in an operational sentence to reveal the topic referred to the title of the manuscript. Operational disclosure is required because it affects the adequacy of the required data.

A.1 : I have added, this study aimed to analyses students’ EA profile of which consisted of six indicators, namely Care (EA 1), Curiosity (EA 2), Critical (EA 3), Dependability (EA 4), Responsibility (EA 5), and Local Wisdom (EA 6).

Q.2 : Research discussing the importance of environmental issues associated with high school student attitudes is an interesting topic in education. The writing uses relevant and > 90% up-to-date article citations, according to the topics discussed. Please add: The theoretical framework that supports research is built so that the direction of the research is clear so that problems can be resolved.

A.2 : The theoretical framework has been described in the 4th, 5th, and 9 th paragraphs.

Q.3 : The research design is appropriate, but qualitative data are still needed regarding the responses and results of in-depth interviews from respondents to answer research problems. The results of the research have good academic achievement, especially for high school and equivalent education levels.

A.3 : Qualitative data has been obtained based on respondents' answers through the collected survey questionnaires had 131 complete responses out of a total of 143 because 12 responses were incomplete and had to be deleted. Twelve samples had missing data because they do not completely answer all the questions, and the remaining 54 samples were ignored because the sample size was reached. A questionnaire and a SEA instrument were used for data collection, consisting of 42 questions about environmental issues faced by the community.

Q.4:  Students from middle school that live between urban and rural areas were selected for this study (10 th paragraph). Writing of that sentence in the text by the author is unclear, and even tends to have opposite meanings.

A.4:  that is, the research location is in the middle school (between urban and rural areas). Purposive sampling determination for the family background of students who lived in the central area of the city who all had similar attributes in terms of cultural and environmental recognition. 

Q.5:  Methods: The number of public high schools in the Wonosobo Regency which are located in downtown or urban areas is at least 4 schools. Based on this data, it is necessary to refine or reconsider the subject or source of research data.

A.5:  Purposive sampling determination for the family background of students who lived in the central area of the city who all had similar attributes in terms of cultural and environmental recognition. 

Q.6:  Statistical analysis and interpretation can be applied in other institutions provided they have the same characteristics. However, it is still necessary to discuss aspects of attitude EA with low scores, why?.

A.6:  EA indicators that score low and do not meet the good fit criteria are presented in Table 2 are (1) Care sub-indicator (EA 1a, 0.46 <1.96); (2) The Critical sub-indicator (EA 3b, 0.64<1.96); (3) The Local Wisdom sub-indicator (EA 6b, 0.03<1.96). Lisrel recommends creating error covariance between indicators and sub-indicators. If this procedure is performed, our new model will experience a decrease in the chi-square value, which of course makes the model better. Each item has a loading factor in measuring its latency factor.

Q.7:  All data sources are available and can be used to ensure full reproducibility. There is a review that the data on the figure illustration (Figure 2 and Figure 3) is too large so that it needs revision.

A.7: The figure illustration has used guidelines. 

Q.8:  The conclusions drawn are supported by the results of data processing. Data processing requirements are adjusted to written objectives in an operational and measurable manner. 

A.8:  I have added the LISREL analysis result in score to the "Care" indicator (EA 1a, 0.46<1.96), Critical (EA 3b, 0.64<1.96), and Local wisdom (EA 6b, 0.03<1.96) are not fulfilled the significance criteria.

Q.9:  References are used both as a guide for the path of ideas (state of the arts) and discussion. Reference is up to date and applicable to the problem.

A.9: Thank you

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At a panel discussion at the Medical School, members of Students for Environmental Awareness in Medicine, including event planner Shadaab Kazi, gave the physicians’ perspective on how environmental issues will impact human health.

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Environmental medicine brings climate change to forefront

Deborah Blackwell

Harvard Correspondent

HMS students address health challenges facing people and the planet

The mission for 30 Harvard Medical School (HMS) students is clear: be the generation that takes action now to secure a livable world for future generations to come.

Members of Students for Environmental Awareness in Medicine (SEAM) are working to address how physicians view the impact of environmental issues on human health. And climate change is their predominant focus.

“We have a moral obligation to mobilize and address climate change, as we treat and will continue to treat patients impacted by it,” said Shadaab Kazi, a first-year medical student at HMS and student organizer of SEAM. “We have a critical role in communicating the health challenges posed by this issue, and the need to adapt to these challenges, to the public, and policymakers.”

Kazi spoke to more than 100 members of the Harvard medical community at “ The Medical Response to Climate Change: What Can We Do ?,” a panel discussion at HMS last week.

The panel included faculty from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health , Harvard Global Health Institute , and health care professionals from Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center .

Researchers across Harvard’s campus are pushing key initiatives to address catastrophic human health consequences of climate change — including poor air quality, temperature-related death and illness, disastrous weather events contributing to infection, food and water insecurity, and overall destabilization of the global ecosystem.

“Because we are Harvard Medical School, we must also lead,” William Lensch , chief of staff to HMS Dean George Daley, said in his opening remarks. “Researchers in our medical community are investigating some of the most important and intimidating problems — new and exacerbating clinical challenges in the communities we serve, and we are working to incorporate the consequences of climate change into our curriculum. There’s a lot to be done.”

Audience members ask the panelists questions.

HMS, Harvard Business School , and the Faculty of Arts & Sciences (FAS) all have begun efforts to integrate climate change into the learning experience. In April, FAS announced a new College concentration in environmental science and engineering that will launch in the fall.

More than two decades ago, HMS became the first medical school in the world to offer an elective course on climate and health, according to panelist Aaron Bernstein , HMS instructor in pediatrics, co-associate director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard Chan School, and a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, who has taught “ Human Health and Global Environmental Change ” for the past 10 years. This year, he said, a lecture on climate change is part of the required HMS curriculum.

“Climate change, as arguably the greatest health threat facing humanity and a major concern for the practice of medicine, is not an elective topic,” he said. “Physicians must not only understand what is at stake for their patients’ health with climate change, but how climate change will affect our practice of medicine.”

Panelist Mary Rice , assistant professor of medicine at HMS and pulmonary and critical care physician at Beth Israel Deaconess, said when she was an HMS student 15 years ago a handful of faculty members made an impression on her about what then was called “the future threat of climate change.” She urged attendees to become involved in sustainability issues.

“People were surprised we were talking about these issues 15 years ago. The weather and climate seemed so far removed from the issues impacting us,” she said. “This is now a public health problem that our patients need our help to solve. It’s not something we can just solve in the clinic.”

Rice founded SEAM in 2005 not only to help promote education about the environment’s role in medicine, but also to perpetuate environmental sustainability at HMS through community projects related to environmental health. SEAM members continue that mission today.

“We are working with sustainability officers and the wider HMS community in finding ways to improve sustainability and help HMS lead in addressing climate change as a medical school,” Kazi said. “We have written a petition requesting further investment in renewable energy sources, food and operations waste reduction, and energy efficiency as an institutional planning priority.”

Harvard is actively engaged in this endeavor, aiming to end its use of fossil fuels by 2050. The goal was announced earlier this year as part of a new climate action plan that includes an interim goal of fossil-fuel neutrality by 2026. To help achieve its objectives, the University is enhancing Living Lab research programs and finding innovative ways to engage students and faculty in sustainability projects on campus, and has launched a new three-year, graduate-level multidisciplinary climate solutions course and research project spanning the professional Schools.

“Fossil-fuel burning is hazardous to human health, contributing to lost years of life, and is the fifth leading cause of death,” Rice said. “Cleaning up the air improves health immediately, and saves lives. It is a medical problem with a known solution.”

Bernstein said the health care industry itself accounts for 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and HMS has a moral obligation to get its own house in order. Part of that is teaching medical students and practicing clinicians about the dangers of climate change. For example, extreme storms, such as hurricanes Harvey and Maria, can bring health care to a halt.

“Hurricane Maria knocked out an IV bag factory in Puerto Rico. That one factory loss, combined with a series of unfortunate coincident events, left all hospitals in Boston I know of rationing IV fluids and IV medications,” he said.

Panelist Gina McCarthy , director of the Center for Climate Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard Chan School and former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asked how the medical community can be prepared for emergencies without addressing climate change.

“Use the science that this University creates to make the direct connection between the great things that you can do for climate [to] the great things you can do for public health,” she said. “This is actually about whether people will be able to live on this changing planet.”

Kazi said the consequences for human health are particularly felt among the most vulnerable populations all over the world, including in the U.S. The medical community needs to communicate and address these critical issues with both patients and world leaders, he said.

“We bear witness to the joys and suffering of life,” Kazi said. “The questions are being asked right now by medical providers across the country and the globe, and we hope that this discussion aids all of us in utilizing our voices to their greatest potential.”

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How to speak with your family and friends about environmental issues

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This article has been adapted and republished with permission of the authors.

We are facing a wide range of enormous environmental crises, including biodiversity loss and climate change. Human activities are driving many of these problems and it is normal to feel hopeless. However, our actions at both individual and policy levels can help address these challenges — and one of the most powerful, yet underappreciated, ways we can take action is by engaging our social networks in dialogue.

Why should you engage your social network about environmental action?

decorative cartoon head

Think of your social network as your conservation superpower. We all have friends and family who trust us and our opinions. If you can encourage just one other person to change their behavior, this can double your environmental impact. Furthermore, we need to create more safe spaces to reflect upon the massive changes happening across our planet and empower more diverse voices to join the environmental movement.

Who is this guide for?

This guide is for anyone who:

  • Cares deeply about environmental issues and would like to effectively engage their family and friends about these tough topics
  • Wants to help catalyze environmental action
  • Feels intimidated to raise environmental issues in interpersonal conversations

Is it ethical?

We try to persuade our friends and family to see things our way all the time. We argue for doing things a certain way at work, we advocate for eating at our favorite restaurant, we support our local sports team. If we’re willing to take a stance on matters like that, why not the future of our planet? By encouraging others to take action, you’re not coercing or forcing them — you’re setting a good example and aligning your behavior with your values. Furthermore, environmental discussions are not only about persuasion; conversations create opportunities for individuals to consider their personal stances on environmental issues, process their emotions, and reflect on what sorts of actions they may be willing to pursue.

Who are the authors?

We are environmental social scientists, drawing on our research and combined experience of campaigning for change.

Start with listening

decorative cartoon; two heads

Start conversations by asking your conversation partner(s) open-ended questions related to environmental issues. For instance, have they perceived changes in their local weather? Have they read about biodiversity loss or climate change in the news recently? What do they think about renewable energy technologies?

Focus on high-impact behaviors

It’s important that individuals pursue environmental solutions that make the most sense to them and align with their personal circumstances. At the same time, in conversations you can try to encourage your family and friends to consider high-impact behaviors, such as shifting to a plant-based diet, flying and driving less, and becoming activists. Spend less time advocating for low-impact behaviors, like single-use plastic straws and recycling, although these actions should certainly not be discouraged.

You don’t need to be an expert

Environmental issues can be very complex. Keep in mind that you don’t need to be an expert to start a conversation. It’s completely fine to say, “I don’t know too much about this, but let’s look it up!” However, you can prepare yourself for discussions using some of the resources listed here.

→ Inside Climate News

→ EPA: Basics of climate change

→ Harvard University’s Center for Climate, Health and Global Environment

Don’t be afraid to try

One of the reasons many people avoid discussing climate change or conserving nature is that they underestimate how many others around them already care about it. However, more people believe in climate change and support conservation policies than you think. For example, more than 70% of Americans believe that global warming is happening.

Share your experiences of adopting environmental behaviors

Individuals are influenced by the behavior of their peers. When people see or hear about someone doing something, it makes them more likely to do it too. The same goes for our friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances. Normalize environmental actions for others by making them visible!

Think about the values that appeal to the person

decorative cartoon head

Research shows that people’s values and political views determine their attitudes and behaviors toward environmental issues far more than their scientific knowledge. Luckily, you know the things that your friends and family care about. You can use that knowledge to tailor your arguments to the person. For instance, if your parents are health-conscious, you could talk about the health benefits of a meat-free diet, while you could talk about local impacts of climate change to your neighbors and cite religious scripture for protecting wildlife to a churchgoing friend.

Know the facts if you can … 

Familiarize yourself with the facts from credible sources. This will make you feel more confident, and appear more reliable.

… but also keep in mind the power of stories

Stories help make environmental impacts and solutions more relatable and human. For example, it may be easier to provoke an emotional response by talking about the day your cat traumatized you by bringing home three dead baby mice in a row (unfortunately a true story) than by citing studies about the impact of outdoor cats on wild prey animals. You can then bring in the science after sparking interest with an engaging story.

decorative cartoon of two people talking

Meet people where they are

We generally go through several “stages of change” when it comes to adopting a new behavior. We move from “pre-contemplation,” where we’re not even aware a problem exists, to maintenance of the behavior. What you talk about with a person should depend on what stage they’re on. For example, before you can start giving our hints and tips for adopting a plant-based diet, a person first needs to understand the environmental impact of meat consumption (among other reasons to limit or avoid eating meat). Affirm that it’s never too late to act on the environmental challenges humanity faces and that our individual choices can make a difference.

Keep it respectful

Always check that individuals are comfortable to engage in a conversation with you about environmental issues. Conduct your conversations respectfully, acknowledging their point of view and listening to what they have to say. Of course, if they do not also treat you respectfully in a discussion, you are also not obligated to remain in the conversation.

decorative cartoon of two people talking

Help people feel more confident

It’s no good convincing people there’s a problem or scaring them with doom and gloom if they then feel powerless to help. Always talk about specific actions people can take to have a positive impact and help them feel confident in their ability to effect change.

Avoid jargon

When you’re interested in a topic and learn the common words and terms used as shorthand for complicated concepts, you can quickly forget that other people don’t have your background knowledge. Even words like “biodiversity” can seem murky to someone who hasn’t read much about the environment. Using a lot of jargon can be alienating and inhibit people from asking questions. Use simple terms, such as “protecting nature” instead of “protecting biodiversity,” or explain what you mean. For example, in an early draft of this guide, the section above was originally titled “Build self-efficacy.” We realized this might not be a common term outside of academic circles, and so we changed it to “Help people feel more confident” instead.

decorative cartoon of four people and planet Earth

Simply having a tough discussion about environmental issues with someone you know is a major achievement. It might have been stressful, and it might not have ended well, but you can take pride in being a person whose actions match your values.

Now it is important to keep the momentum going. Remain persistent, but try not to be pushy. It might be helpful to check in periodically and ask your conversation partners if they have tried anything new after your discussion, and how they found it.

Lastly, remain optimistic! Encouraging pro-environmental behavior is a long process that requires reinforcement, feedback, and a strong commitment.

Having a positive outlook will make these conversations easier, more meaningful, and more likely to create change.

If you would like to see hundreds of examples of real environmental discussions for inspiration, you can check out the Talk Climate Change interactive conversation map.

Laura Thomas-Walters is a research scientist and deputy director of experimental research for the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, the publisher of this site. Viktoria Cologna is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Emiel de Lange is an environmental social scientist and also serves as a conservation impact technical advisor for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Joshua Ettinger is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Matthew Selinske is a postdoctoral research fellow with the ICON Science Lab at RMIT University and a senior social scientist at Mosaic Insights.

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K-12 students learned a lot last year, but they're still missing too much school

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Cory Turner

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Sequoia Carrillo

how to address environmental issues as a student

From 2022-2023, chronic absenteeism declined in 33 of the 39 states AEI looked at. But it was still a persistent problem: In a handful of places, including Nevada, Washington, D.C., Michigan, New Mexico and Oregon, roughly 1 in 3 students – or more – were chronically absent. LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

From 2022-2023, chronic absenteeism declined in 33 of the 39 states AEI looked at. But it was still a persistent problem: In a handful of places, including Nevada, Washington, D.C., Michigan, New Mexico and Oregon, roughly 1 in 3 students – or more – were chronically absent.

It's going to take aggressive interventions to repair the pandemic's destructive impact on kids' schooling.

That's the takeaway of two big new studies that look at how America's K-12 students are doing. There's some good news in this new research, to be sure – but there's still a lot of work to do on both student achievement and absenteeism. Here's what to know:

1. Students are starting to make up for missed learning

From spring 2022 to spring 2023, students made important learning gains, making up for about one-third of the learning they had missed in math and a quarter of the learning they had missed in reading during the pandemic.

That's according to the newly updated Education Recovery Scorecard , a co-production of Harvard University's Center for Education Policy Research and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University.

6 things we've learned about how the pandemic disrupted learning

6 things we've learned about how the pandemic disrupted learning

The report says, "Students learned 117 percent in math and 108 percent in reading of what they would typically have learned in a pre-pandemic school year."

In an interview with NPR's All Things Considered , Stanford professor Sean Reardon said that's surprisingly good news: "A third or a quarter might not sound like a lot, but you have to realize the losses from 2019 to 2022 were historically large."

When the same team of researchers did a similar review last year, they found that, by spring of 2022, the average third- through eighth-grader had missed half a grade level in math and a third of a grade level in reading. So, the fact that students are now making up ground is a good sign.

These results do come with a few caveats, including that the researchers were only able to review data and draw their conclusions from 30 states this year.

2. Despite that progress, very few states are back to pre-pandemic learning levels

The Harvard and Stanford study of student learning includes one sobering sentence: "Alabama is the only state where average student achievement exceeds pre-pandemic levels in math." And average achievement in reading has surpassed pre-pandemic levels in just three of the states they studied: Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi. Every other state for which they had data has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels in math and reading.

"Many schools made strong gains last year, but most districts are still working hard just to reach pre-pandemic achievement levels," said Harvard's Thomas Kane, one of the learning study's co-authors.

3. Chronic absenteeism also improved in many places ... slightly

The rate of chronic absenteeism – the percentage of students who miss 10% or more of a school year – declined from 2022 to 2023. That's according to research by Nat Malkus at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He found chronic absenteeism declined in 33 of the 39 states he studied.

Yes, "the differences were relatively small," Malkus writes, but it's improvement nonetheless: "the average chronic absenteeism rate across these states in 2023 was 26 percent, down from 28 percent for the same 39 states in 2022."

Glass half-full: Things aren't getting worse.

4. But, again, chronic absenteeism is still high

Malkus found chronic absenteeism was at 26% in 2023. Before the pandemic, in 2019, those same states reported a rate of 15%. That adds some painful context to the "good news" two-point decline in absenteeism from 2022 to 2023. Sure, it's down, but it's still so much higher than it was and should be.

Think of it this way: In 2023, roughly 1 student out of 4 was still chronically absent across the school year.

In a handful of places, including Nevada, Washington, D.C., Michigan, New Mexico and Oregon, roughly 1 in 3 students – or more – were chronically absent. That's a crisis.

Research shows a strong connection between absenteeism and all kinds of negative consequences for students, including an increased likelihood of dropping out of school.

Chronic absenteeism also hurts the students who don't miss school. That's because, as the learning study's authors point out, when absent students return, they require extra attention and "make it hard for teachers to keep the whole class moving."

5. Poverty matters (as always)

Both the learning and the chronic absenteeism studies capture the headwinds that constantly buffet children in poverty.

"No one wants poor children to foot the bill for the pandemic," said Harvard's Kane, "but that is the path that most states are on."

On learning: Reardon told NPR "the pandemic really exacerbated inequality between students in high-poverty and low-poverty districts and students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds."

In 2023, students' academic recovery was relatively strong across groups, which is good – but it means "the inequality that was widened during the pandemic hasn't gotten smaller, and in some places it's actually gotten larger," Reardon told NPR.

In fact, the report says, "in most states, achievement gaps between rich and poor districts are even wider now than they were before the pandemic." The learning study singles out Massachusetts and Michigan as the states where those gaps in math and reading achievement widened the most between poor and non-poor students.

Similarly, Malkus, at AEI, found that, between 2019 and 2022, rates of chronic absenteeism rose much more in high-poverty districts (up from 20% to 37%) than in low-poverty districts (up from 12% to 23%).

"Chronic absenteeism has increased the most for disadvantaged students," Malkus writes, "those who also experienced the greatest learning losses during the pandemic and can least afford the harms that come with chronic absenteeism."

6. Families must play an important role in learning recovery

Both studies acknowledge that families must play an important role in helping students – and schools – find a healthy, post-pandemic normal. The problem is, surveys show parents and guardians often underestimate the pandemic's toll on their children's learning . "Parents cannot advocate effectively for their children's future if they are misinformed," says the learning study.

To combat this, the learning researchers propose that districts be required to inform parents if their child is below grade-level in math or English. Those parents could then enroll their students in summer learning, tutoring and after-school programs, all of which have benefitted from federal COVID relief dollars. That funding is set to expire this fall, and some of these learning recovery opportunities may dry up, so the clock is ticking.

7. There's a "culture problem" around chronic absenteeism

Reducing chronic absenteeism, Malkus says, will also depend on families.

"This is a culture problem," Malkus tells NPR. "And in schools and in communities, culture eats policy for breakfast every day."

By "culture problem," Malkus is talking about how families perceive the importance of daily attendance relative to other challenges in their lives. He says some parents seem more inclined now to let their students miss school for various reasons, perhaps not realizing the links between absenteeism and negative, downstream consequences.

"Look, the patterns and routines of going to school were disrupted and to some degree eroded during the pandemic," Malkus says. "And I don't think we've had a decisive turn back that we need to have, to turn this kind of behavior around, and it's going to stay with students until that culture changes."

How do you do that? Malkus points to some low-cost options — like texting or email campaigns to increase parental involvement and encourage kids to get back in school – but says these, alone, aren't "up to the scale of what we're facing now."

Higher-cost options for schools to consider could include door-knocking campaigns, sending staff on student home-visits and requiring that families of chronically absent students meet in-person with school staff.

The learning study goes one step further: "Elected officials, employers, and community leaders should launch public awareness campaigns and other initiatives to lower student absenteeism." Because, after all, students can't make up for the learning they missed during the pandemic if they don't consistently attend school now.

What both of these studies make clear is there is no one solution that will solve these problems, and success will require further investment, aggressive intervention and patience.

Malkus says, even the high-cost, high-return options will likely only drive down chronic absenteeism by about four percentage points. A big win, he says, "but four percentage points against 26% isn't going to get us where we need to go."

Edited by: Nicole Cohen Visual design and development by: LA Johnson and Aly Hurt

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On this page, ucc researchers awarded €3.7m for new research to address climate and environmental challenges.

how to address environmental issues as a student

  • UCC is the highest performing institute in the Environmental Protection Agency Research Call Awards 2023.
  • Funded research covers a wide range of areas covering climate change, the natural environment, the green and circular economy, and the environment and human health.
  • JustCities Hub project to capture and explore timely knowledge on enabling climate justice change in the city.

Cities could learn from Paris’ recent decision to charge higher parking for SUVs, according to a University College Cork (UCC) researcher leading a project on more sustainable urban environments.

Dr Niall Dunphy, of the School of Engineering and Architecture and Environmental Research Institute, made the comments as his project was announced as one of eight UCC studies awarded a combined €3.7m in environmental research funding.

Dr Dunphy, whose JustCities Hub was today announced as a beneficiary in the latest Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Research Call Awards said: "JustCities Hub is fundamentally about imagining city life in a way that embraces the challenges of climate action and promotes stable, just, and healthy urban environments. This must include learning from the experiences of other cities and importantly reflecting the wishes of the citizenry. The recent Paris referendum on higher charges for SUVs is an example of citizens deciding to make their city safer and healthier."

The project seeks to enable just transitions in cities while also engaging in problem-solving climate change from a multi-stakeholder perspective.

JustCities Hub is one of eight UCC projects to receive funding in the EPA Research Call Awards, to address a range of areas covering climate change, the natural environment, the green and circular economy, and the environment and human health. Nationally, UCC is the highest performing institute in terms of these awards, receiving funding of €3.7 million from a total €14.3 million across thirteen organisations.

The EPA Research Call provides support for innovative research projects that will support policy and decision making, while also addressing environmental, climate change and sustainability challenges. Among the new UCC research projects to be funded by the EPA are:

Professor Edmond Byrne (School of Engineering and Architecture and the Environmental Research Institute/MaREI) Project Title: Deep Societal Innovation for Sustainability and Human Flourishing (DSIS). Project Co-Leads: Professor Maggie O’Neill (Department of Sociology and Criminology and ISS21), Dr Ian Hughes (Environmental Research Institute/MaREI) Funding amount: €593,519

The accelerating impacts of climate change, allied to the challenges of meeting 2030 goals (and beyond), has stirred a sense of urgency for policy responses and societal and behavioural changes needed to embark upon the structural transformations required to tackle pressing global challenges. DSIS seeks to develop a methodological basis for conceptualising the deep whole of society transformation required to engage on a trajectory towards authentic sustainability and human flourishing, which can create narratives for deep, rapid, whole of society transformation, and employ those narratives to inform policy making and public discourse on climate change and sustainability. DSIS is an inter- and transdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and international initiative, anchored at, and emanating from a well-developed research base in this area at UCC, and includes researchers and academics from MaREI and ISS21.

--------------------------------------------

Dr Niall Dunphy (School of Engineering and Architecture and the Environmental Research Institute) Project Title: JustCities Hub Project Co-Leads: Dr Alexandra Revez (MaREI), Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir (Associate Vice-President of Sustainability at UCC and Director of the Environmental Research Institute) , Dr Gerard Mullally (Department of Sociology and Criminology) Funding amount: €593,579

JustCities Hub encapsulates a combined concern for embracing the challenges of climate action and promoting stable, just, and healthy urban environments. It adopts a nested research design with emphasis on the connection between scientific knowledge and practice. On the one hand it seeks to capture and explore timely knowledge on enabling climate justice change in the city and on the other it seeks to engage in problem-solving and evaluating solutions for climate change from a transdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspective. The project also explores and evaluates mechanisms for mobilising the development of micro-interventions, in a manner that supports, encourages, and empowers the potential and the diverse spaces of civic engagement within the city. Furthermore, it provides a strategic plan to bolster climate justice in the city through co-creation and foresight activities.

Dr Aaron Lim (Department of Geography and the Environmental Research Institute) Project Title: Digital Environmental Technology for Enhanced Coastal Zone Management (DETECT) Funding amount: €555,187

This project aims to harness the power of novel multispectral 3D structure-from-motion photogrammetry, machine learning and numerical modelling to support environmental decision-making and policy development with a focus on vulnerable coastal habitats in Ireland. By leveraging existing data sources, emerging technologies, and consolidated methodologies, this project will develop a digital twin framework from multi-threshold data to create a state-of-art simulation system of protected habitats. This will enable high-resolution predictive modelling that can provide near-real time results, key for informed decision-making of stakeholders. Thus, this project ensures synergy and collaboration with Ireland’s leading research institutions towards actionable insights on vulnerable ecosystems whilst creating a virtual replica of the current state of the environment.

Dr Paul Holloway (Department of Geography and the Environmental Research Institute) Project Title: TALX2 - Place-Based Climate Action Partnerships Project Co-Leads: Dr Jane McCullough (Northern Ireland Environment Link) Funding amount: €596,503

As tipping points in the climate system continue to be approached at an accelerating pace, threatening to cause profound physical and socio-economic changes, ambitious climate action, that takes a whole of society approach, is urgently needed. By adopting a place-based and multi-stakeholder-led partnership approach, TALX2 will foster stronger communication and collaboration between stakeholders across the island of Ireland, utilising and exchanging innovative data and knowledge on climate action, empowering local actors, and enhancing the ability of communities to plan for an uncertain future, and realise opportunities for sustainable development. The proposed research will use place-based partnerships to build skills and capacity, and establish long-term, all-island relationships, while leveraging synergies and opportunities for climate action that are inclusive and holistic. TALX2 will also employ reflective learning processes to ensure that learnings can be shared and used by communities to support climate action across Ireland, in line with national priorities for addressing climate change impacts, as outlined by both the National Adaptation Framework (NAF) for Ireland and the Northern Ireland (NI) Climate Change Adaptation Programme (NICCAP).

Dr Archishman Bose (School of Engineering and Architecture and the Environmental Research Institute/MaREI) Project Title: Mapping the Role of End-of-Life Tyres for a Sustainable Circular Economy in Ireland (ENTYRE) Project Co-Leads: Dr Gillian Collins (School of Chemistry) and Dr Richard O’Shea (School of Engineering and Architecture) Funding amount: €143,071

Tyres are the wheels of modern civilisation. In the European Union (EU), over three hundred million units of tyres are sold annually. These tyres, evidently reach their end of life (EOL) and requires disposal, reuse, or repurposing. Upcoming local and EU regulations will severely limit the current uses of EOL tyres and would require critical analyses of the alternative pathways of use and repurposing of waste tyres in Ireland. Accordingly, this project, Mapping the Role of End-of-Life Tyres for a Sustainable Circular Economy in Ireland (ENTYRE), is aimed at performing a deep review of existing practices and literature regarding utilisation pathways of waste EOL tyres in terms of their techno-economic and environmental impacts as well as from the light of current and upcoming local (Irish) and international (EU) policies. Through the interaction with relevant stakeholders, industries, and decision makers using questionnaires and workshop (s), this 12-month project will aim to produce industry and policy papers and briefs for valorisation of EOL tyres in Ireland.

Dr Noreen Byrne (Department of Food Business and Development, Cork University Business School, and Director of the Centre for Co-operative Studies) Project Title: DStream: Dairy Sustainability through Regenerative Experimentation and Mindsets. Project Co-Leads: Dr Olive McCarthy (Department of Food Business and Development and Centre for Co-operative Studies), Professor Ciara Heavin (Cork University Business School), Stephanie Marwood (Department of Food Business and Development and Centre for Co-operative Studies). Funding amount: €521,290

This project is grounded in the farmer and their practices. The overall objective of DStream is to investigate the role of practices in enabling the emergence of pro-environmental and experimental mindsets amongst Irish dairy farmers. Moreover, DStream aims to assess the potential for creating momentum for self-sustaining pro-environmental behaviour at both an on-farm and landscape level. DStream provides a basis to assess the inner dimensions of the farmer and use this knowledge to influence and inform policy and initiatives in a way that goes beyond adoption rates and environmental results (which often have a temporal disconnect). The vision of DStream is to provide a strong evidence base for action towards an enabling context for a more sustainable production system in Irish dairy.

Dr Tracy Bradfield (Department of Economics, Cork University Business School, and the Environmental Research Institute) Project Title: The Development of Land Use Indicators for the Protection of Our Natural Environment Project Co-Leads: Professor Thia Hennessy, Dr Emma Dillon (Teagasc), Dr Cathal Buckley (Teagasc) Funding amount: €104,053

Understanding and measuring how land use can be adapted to improve environmental and wider socio-economic outcomes is crucial for a more sustainable future. This project seeks to develop indicators and an integrated model for assessing the impacts of land use in Ireland in particular. This is with the aim of understanding how land use policy can be adapted to improve the environment, resource availability, food, fibre and fuel production, and wider socio-economic factors.

Dr Michelle McKeown (Department of Geography and the Environmental Research Institute) Project Title: Carbon and catchments - Understanding the Impacts and Sources of Carbon Export from land to water (C-UISCE) Funding amount: €599,997

Carbon in water is a natural and essential component of waterbodies chemical makeup. However, elevated levels of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) can lead to environmental issues. The C-UISCE project aims to improve our understanding of the sources and processes influencing the export of carbon from land to water, and its implications for water quality and aquatic ecosystem functioning. C-UISCE addresses a critical lack of DOC baseline data in catchments where agriculture, forestry and hydromorphology are significant pressures, closing existing knowledge gaps. It is anticipated that C-UISCE will radically improve our conceptual understanding of the sources and processes influencing DOC export by developing high-quality carbon baseline data and models that will enable scientists, policy makers and land managers to safeguard our freshwater resources from the impacts of climatic and environmental change.

Announcing the awards, Laura Burke , EPA Director General said: "Scientific research and innovation are playing an increasingly important role in informing how governments and society can respond to the challenges posed by climate change and environmental degradation. The projects announced today will address knowledge gaps, both current and future, to provide robust evidence to support the implementation of effective environmental policies in Ireland."

Professor John Cryan , UCC Vice President for Research and Innovation said: "I would like to thank the Environmental Protection Agency for continuing to award talented researchers that allows them, through scientific research and innovation, to tackle critical environmental, climate, health, and sustainability issues. These awards will further strengthen UCC’s position as a recognised global leader in the field of Sustainability. Aligned to UCC Futures – Sustainability, these projects will enable UCC researchers to support environmental policies in Ireland, address key societal challenges caused by climate change, and help deliver a healthier environment for all."

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Teen jocelyn kaelin to help southold trustees explore environmental issues.

By Nicholas Grasso

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how to address environmental issues as a student

When it comes to fighting for the environment, Jocelyn Kaelin not only talks the talk, she walks the walk — in her vegan leather Doc Martens boots.

In addition to taking AP courses, participating in school musicals and running cross country and track, Jocelyn has dedicated much of her high school career to her school’s environmental club. 

Since was named co-president in her junior year, the club has worked to bolster its visibility throughout the school and the community. With roughly 20 members, the club has initiated a sneaker drive to keep old shoes out of landfills and instead send them to those in need. They also started collecting “nurdles,” or microplastics, during beach cleanups to send to the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, which tracks where and how such materials wash ashore. 

“She actually spearheads a lot of the ideas for the environmental club,” said Stephanie Berberich, a Southold science teacher and club adviser. “She looks for projects for us to work on and actually goes through with them, which is something that I don’t see very often. We have all these ideas, but nothing really ever happens. But with Jocelyn heading our environmental club, things actually get done.”

Carol Brown, a member of Southold Town’s Conservation Advisory Counci l, took notice of Jocelyn’s good work and dedication and invited her to attend CAC meetings.

“She has follow-through and really cares about the town,” Ms. Brown said. “She’s a smart, caring, passionate young woman.”

At the recommendation of Ms. Brown and other members, the Town Board voted last Tuesday to appoint Jocelyn as CAC student representative, two days ahead of her 18th birthday. The committee’s volunteer members have diverse backgrounds and are empowered by local elected officials to advise on the development, management and protection of the town’s natural resources.

“She’s the type of student every school wants in their district,” said Town Board member Brian Mealy, who also serves as the board’s liaison to the CAC. “She’s a high achiever academically, she’s a hard worker and she’s a perfect fit for the CAC and the work we’re doing.”

Among the responsibilities outlined in the Southold CAC’s mission statement is its advisory role to the Town Trustees, who are charged with approving or denying permits for any development within 100 feet of fresh and saltwater wetlands and environmentally sensitive areas, including ponds, creeks, beaches, bluffs, the Peconic Bay and Goldsmith’s Inlet. 

CAC members review each permit application and vote whether to recommend approval to the Town Board. In her new position, Jocelyn will have a vote in this advisory process.

“I’m really excited to get young people involved, especially when it comes to climate change,” said Town Trustee Liz Gillooly, who serves as the Trustees’ liaison to the CAC. “It’s their future.”

Jocelyn’s appointment is the first of its kind in nearly a decade. As per state law, all CACs are allowed to include special appointees between the ages of 16 and 21. Ms. Brown said the last student appointed to the council, which happened before her tenure, did not have an dedicated mentor to guide them or assign specific tasks. This time around, she will serve as Jocelyn’s mentor and said they have already discussed “two or three things” they will work on together.

Ms. Brown said Joceyln will also assist in the town’s efforts to reach bronze status as one of New York State’s Climate Smart Communities, which could also help the town access more grant funds from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to carry out environmental initiatives.

“I’m very passionate about the environmental concerns of our town and our world,” Ms. Brown said. “So having a person to work with who is young, and passionate like me, it’s an excellent way of moving forward.”

Jocelyn, who also works at Southold Pharmacy, was not always particularly passionate about the environment. But during the COVID-19 lockdown, she began spending more time on social media and learned of the huge challenges confronting the environment due to climate change. This inspired her to change her own lifestyle to reduce her carbon footprint, including in her eating habits. 

Much to her family’s shock, Jocelyn became a vegan overnight, , which influences not only her diet, but her fashion choices and waste disposal practices.

“We’ve certainly learned a lot from her,” said her mother, Erin Kaelin. “We compost now, and she’s somewhat influenced the family in that we eat less meat than we did.”

After she graduates in June, Jocelyn plans to pursue a double major of environmental studies and Spanish in college, but has not yet decided where she will enroll.

“Depending on what job I go into, I could have to travel abroad, and speaking Spanish, [so widely spoken] in the world, is pretty important,” she said. “It would be great to communicate with people who are being more affected by these issues, like in South American countries.”

These past few years have opened Jocelyn’s eyes to the environmental concerns people face across the globe, as well as right here in Southold.

“Of course I’m terrified. How could you not be?” Jocelyn said of the climate challenges that lie ahead. “But I’m more hopeful, because if I’m passionate about this and the people in my school and in my town are this passionate, there are people like us all over the world.”

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