Mandatory Education On Global Warming In Schools

The source, politics and economics of Global Warming should be taught compulsorily in the schools from ages 12 – 18.

The current contemporary economic realities, private actors and government bodies, occupy significant roles in global environmental politics, governance mechanism, role of business in implementing, changing economic system, significance of green economy and changing nature of political dynamics (Timothy et al., 2015). One of the private actors is the education institutes. This essay will determine two sides of the issue of whether the source, politics and economics of Global Warming should be taught compulsorily or should not be taught in the schools from ages 12 – 18. The determination has to be seen from the practicality, effectiveness and implementation level of the course.

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In favour

The need and demand for educating children at schools about global warming and sustainable development has increase in recent past. Global warming has effect on economics and politics and therefore there is a need to increase awareness, at grass root level including schools so as to enable effective implementation of programmes to deal with it. Everyone has heard about Great Thunberg, a student, who sat outside Sweden's parliament on 20th August, 2018 carrying a sign that says "school strike for climate change". Her protest led to around 1.6 million students from 125 countries walked out of school on 15th March 2019 to demand climate change action (Nevett, 2009). This demonstrates that students are very much aware and are part of the global movement against global warming. This also calls for proper and mandatory education courses at schools to advance global interests towards sustainable development.

The reason why there must be a course on global warming and climate related issues is the general curiosity about the effects of climate change and at the same time the lack of a formal source of information and knowledge. This was reflected in a study comprising 378 6th graders at a suburban blended learning charter school in a Mid-Atlantic U.S. state. The source of information was mainly the media, internet or an informal lesson in the school. The interesting part of the finding was that some of the students found participating in relevant area of project or research shaped their ideas about climate change (McGinnis et al., 2016).

The importance of having mandatory climate related courses in school is seen in the entire globe. North of Tyne, a region of northern England, plans to the first to have a UN-accredited climate change teacher in all the primary and secondary schools. This plan will aim to meet UN sustainable development goal. This course will cover understanding seriousness of the global warming situation by making students aware of mitigation strategies and adaptation measures (The Guardian, 2019). Likewise, Italy also plans to become the first to include a mandatory course on climate change and sustainable development in public schools (Berger, 2019 ). Cambodia is leading in Asia in climate change education (Staff, 2019).

A study on Spanish secondary students' willingness to take specific combat global warming prevention actions shows that for each pro-environmental actions, they have intention even if it not effective and also a disinclination even if it highly effective. Such contradictory mindset drives the need for environmental education in effectively modifying behavior (Rodríguez et al., 2010). If proper courses are prepared, there would be an increase in levels concern in this area, such as was found with research using a hands-on science unit prepared and taught over eight weeks to student with hands on activities or effective visual aids (Taber & Taylor, 2009).

Not in favour

Finding of a 2008 survey across 628 public school science teachers in Colardo shows an ineffective implementation of course around climate change. A majority of the teachers informally discussed climate change, despite inclusion of a climate and climate change course. A few teachers even avoided teaching climate change and showed a gap in instruction, knowledge, and learning (Wise, 2010). The reason may be because students are not treated as individuals who have thinking capacity. The absence of which makes the including of the course redundant. Schools are meant to educate active citizens. But, students are often treated as an entity without any free will (Wolff, 2011). Education and schooling sometime neglect the emotions and the body (Selby, 2010). But the fact remains that there is a general lack of awareness and practical guildelines about who how to go about a formal education course relavent with the topic. This is seen in most U.S. science teachers who include climate science in their courses, but they do not have sufficient grasp of the science, which may hinder effective teaching (Plutzer et al., 2016).

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Sustainable development is deterred by trade-offs, which generally favour economic growth and place social well-being and ecological viability subservient. This aspect goes against including the course on climate change and global warming in schooling, and goes against the very principle of shaping social and ecological inclusiveness through social and ecological roots (Gupta et al., 2015), and protection of social and ecological goals through power politics (Mosse, 2010).

Existing political and public discourses around climate change influence the way textbooks discuss topics around climate changes. The Middle school students learning about climate change through the classroom textbooks should have instead been a scientific discourse. In reality, some textbooks framed climate change as being uncertain in scientific community. Such uncertainty is around its occurring and about its human-causation (Román & Busch, 2016). This altogether goes against the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It makes national measures, like the UK political framework laid down based on these SDGs, redundant (Gov.UK, 2020). Consequential effect may be that formal education on climate and environment may not have that desired effect that one would want to. This was seen in a study across state primary schooling in Thailand to determine whether formal education encourages pro-environmental behaviours. The number of years of schooling did not show cost-saving pro-environmental actions, but a higher probability of knowledge-based environmentally-friendly actions. Formal education does not always show significant impact on concerns about global warming and also the willingness to pay for environmental tax (Chankrajang & Muttarak, 2017).

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Bibliography

  • Berger, M., 2019. Italy’s government becomes first to mandate climate change education in schools. [Online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/11/06/thats-why-we-exist-italys-government-becomes-first-mandate-climate-change-education-schools/ [Accessed 16 March 2020].
  • Chankrajang, T. & Muttarak, R., 2017. Green returns to education: Does schooling contribute to pro-environmental behaviours? Evidence from Thailand. Ecological Economics, 131 , pp.434-48.
  • European Commission, 2020. Causes of climate change. [Online] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/change/causes_en [Accessed 16 March 2020].
  • Gov.UK, 2020. Corporate report: Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/implementing-the-sustainable-development-goals/implementing-the-sustainable-development-goals--2 [Accessed 16 March 2020].
  • Gupta, J., Cornellissen, V. & Ros-Tonen, M.A.F., 2015. Inclusive development. In P. Pattberg & F. Zel, eds. Encyclopedia of global environmental politics and governance. Cheltenham: : Edward Elgar. pp.35–44.
  • McGinnis, J.R., Breslyn, W. & Emily Hestness, 2016. “It's happening now”: Middle school students’ thinking about climate change. [Online] Available at: http://www.climateedresearch.org/publications/2016/casestudywriteup-NARST2016.pdf [Accessed 16 March 2020].
  • Mosse, D., 2010. A relational approach to durable poverty, inequality and power. The Journal of Development Studies, 46(7), pp.1156–78.
  • Nevett, J., 2009. The Greta effect? Meet the schoolgirl climate warriors. [Online] BBC News Available at: https://www.dhushara.com/Biocrisis/19/5/climate%20warrriors.Reduce%20to%20300%20dpi%20average%20quality%20-%20STANDARD%20COMPRESSION.pdf [Accessed 16 March 2020].
  • Plutzer, E. et al., 2016. Climate confusion among US teachers. Science 351, 6274 , pp.664-65.

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