climate change case study for students

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”.

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

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.

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

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Case study 6.1- adapting to a changing world.

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Science and Engineering Practices

Analyzing and Interpreting Data: Analyze and interpret data to determine similarities and differences in findings. MS-P4.7:

Engaging in Argument from Evidence: Evaluate competing design solutions to a real-world problem based on scientific ideas and principles, empirical evidence, and/or logical arguments regarding relevant factors (e.g. economic, societal, environmental, ethical considerations). HS-P7.6:

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions: Design, evaluate, and/or refine a solution to a complex real-world problem, based on scientific knowledge, student-generated sources of evidence, prioritized criteria, and tradeoff considerations. HS-P6.5:

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Global Climate Change: Though the magnitudes of human impacts are greater than they have ever been, so too are human abilities to model, predict, and manage current and future impacts. HS-ESS3.D1:

Performance Expectations

Engineering Design: Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts. HS-ETS1-3:

Earth and Human Activity: Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems. HS-ESS3-4:

This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection

This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are

For more information about the peer review process itself, please see https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html .

In this activity, students consider how several communities are adapting to climate change-related problems including drought's impacts on agriculture, loss of assets due to climate-related hazards, freshwater availability, and extreme heat waves. They will read brief case studies about agro-forestry, insurance strategies, the "Room for the River" program in the Netherlands, water storage from retreating glaciers, and city planning for heat waves. Based on these examples and knowledge of their own community, they will suggest possible adaptation strategies that will be most beneficial to their area.

Expand for more detail and links to related resources

Activity Classification and Connections to Related Resources Collapse

Grade level.

Learning Goals

During this activity, your students will:

• Identify to which climate change opinion group they belong (alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, or dismissive) using a climate change survey instrument.
• Compare the class distribution of climate change opinions to the national distribution.
• Determine their own and their community's social vulnerability to climate change based on demographic factors.
• Distinguish between climate change mitigation and adaptation and the potential pros and cons of each strategy.
• Summarize several methods of 21st-century adaptations to climate change, including agroforestry, floodplain reclamation, insurance policy changes, and response to extreme heat waves.

My goals in creating this activity were to:

• Provide an understanding of current national attitudes about climate change.
• Illustrate the difference between climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation strategies.
• Provide structured opportunities to identify effective 21st-century climate change adaptation efforts.
• Encourage reflection about one's own beliefs about the existence of climate change, humans' contribution to climate change, and the potential impacts of climate change on society.
• Provide opportunities for reflection about the inequity of climate change and the need for climate resilience in industrialized and developing countries.

Context for Use

Educational level: introductory geology, meteorology, oceanography, or other geoscience-related course

Class size: can be adapted to serve a variety of class sizes.

Class format: This activity is suitable for use in a lecture or lab setting but can also be done outside of class as a homework assignment. If this activity is done in class, the desired format is a gallery walk , during which groups of two to four students read several examples of climate change adaptation case studies, followed by a compilation of ideas about personal and local adaptations to climate change in the future. Alternatively, students may read the case studies individually outside of class and write a response to personal and local adaptations to climate change in the future.

Time required: approximately 50 minutes, including a discussion on public opinion about climate change, climate change adaptation vs. mitigation, and the adaptation case studies.

Special equipment: Each student should receive a copy of the preparation exercise (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 135kB Sep9 12) . Each student should have access to the climate change adaptation case studies. If the activity is done during class, the instructor should provide copies of the case studies. If the activity is done as a homework assignment, students can access the case studies online.

Skills or concepts that students should have already mastered before encountering the activity: Students should have an awareness of the concept of anthropogenic climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions, as well as measured trends in greenhouse gas emissions (as studied in case study 5.2 of the Climate of Change module. Before coming to class, each student should have taken the "6 Americas" online survey and completed the social vulnerability survey.

• as an in-class activity on its own or in conjunction with Case Study 6.2, depending on time constraints;
• as a lab on human responses to climate change when combined with Unit 1 and Case Study 6.2;
• as part of the complete Climate of Change InTeGrate module.

Description and Teaching Materials

• Preparation Exercise: What's your Climate Change Personality? (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 135kB Sep9 12) (student handout)
• Adapting to a Changing World: Climate Change and the Insurance Industry (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 428kB Sep15 12) (student handout)
• Adapting to a Changing World: Heat Waves (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 2.9MB Sep15 12) (student handout)
• Adapting to a Changing World: Flooding (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 791kB Jun24 14) (student handout)

Climate Adaptation and the Insurance Industry

• In these case studies, how is the response of the US insurance industry (Alfa and State Farm Florida) different from the HARITA partners?
• Why do you think that HARITA has responded so differently to weather and climate-related insurance issues than Alfa and State Farm Florida have responded?
• How, if at all, is the Alfa and State Farm Florida response an effective climate change adaptation strategy?
• How, if at all, is the HARITA response an effective climate change adaptation strategy?
• Which response—Alfa and State Farm Florida OR HARITA—do you believe is a more effective climate change adaptation strategy?

Adaptation to Extreme Heat Waves

• Name one benefit of installing a cool roof.
• Uncertainty related to climate change means that many cities may need to adapt to increased climate variability. How do projects like the Green Streets Initiative have the potential to help cities adapt to both heat waves and flooding?
• What are some of the differences between adapting to heat waves in a major metropolitan area like New York City vs. a smaller city like Wangaratta? In which type of settlement do you think that adaptation to heat waves would be more challenging? Why?
• Which, if any, of these adaptations to heat waves would be feasible where you live?

Adaptation to Flooding

• How does the Dutch strategy for adapting to climate change-related flooding differ from flood adaptation strategies in the United States? Which country's strategy do you believe is more effective?
• How has the Dutch government differed in its approach to adaptation in rural areas compared to adaptation in urban areas?
• How do you feel about the Dutch government relocating individuals like Jacques Broekmans, whose land lies in a designated flood zone, and widening areas along the Rhine River, allowing some communities to flood?
• The Netherlands is a wealthy, industrialized country. Which of their adaptations would be feasible in poorer, developing countries? Which of their adaptations would not?

Teaching Notes and Tips

• Potential procedure for comparing the class "Six Americas" data to the national data: instructor has alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, and dismissive written on the board. As students enter the classroom, they are instructed to put a mark under their climate personality from the survey. Instructor tallies the totals for each climate personality and writes the totals on the board, then asks students to calculate the percentages of each climate personality. When finished, the class data can be compared to the national data. Reasons for any observed differences may be speculated upon by the class.
• In getting students to differentiate between mitigation vs. adaptation, there are many geologic and nongeologic analogies that may be utilized other than "the aging starlet" story provided in the PowerPoint slides. For example, faculty using this case study in an environmental geology or natural hazards course could discuss public response to debris flow hazards in Southern California. The instructor could present two debris flow response scenarios and ask students to consider which is an adaptation strategy, which is a mitigation strategy, and pros and cons of each. An interesting adaptation strategy is described in John McPhee's The Control of Nature : "At least one family has experienced so many debris flows coming into their backyard that they long ago installed overhead doors in the rear end of their built-in garage. Now when the boulders come they open both ends of their garage, and the debris goes through to the street" (189).
• There are several methods that may be used in implementing the climate change adaptation examples activity:
• Gallery walk #1:
• Each student is given a handout with all of the climate change adaptation examples.
• Questions about each set of examples are displayed on large pieces of paper, whiteboards, etc., around the classroom.
• In groups, students visit each station, read the climate change adaptation examples from their handout, and write their responses to the questions directly on the large pieces of paper/whiteboards.
• If the instructor chooses/if time allows, a group discussion summarizing the answers to the questions may follow.
• Gallery walk #2:
• Enlarge the font for the climate change adaptation examples and display the examples on large pieces of paper, whiteboards, etc. around the classroom.
• Each group is given a handout with questions for each climate change adaptation strategy.
• In groups, students rotate around the classroom and read the climate change adaptation examples.
• In groups, students answer the questions (on their handout) for each set of examples.
• Virtual gallery walk: if students have computer access, they may read the climate change adaptation examples online on the climate change adaptations page .
• Seated, small-group discussion: same procedure as gallery walk #1, only rather than students answering the questions on large pieces of paper/whiteboards around the classroom, they answer the questions on their handout in small groups.
• If possible, the audio clips on flood adaptation in the Netherlands would be an excellent addition to this activity during class. In a gallery walk setting, students could be prompted to listen to the audio clips before their group answers the flood adaptation questions. Alternatively, the clip could be played for the entire class at once.

(1) There are several methods that may be used to assess the climate adaptation gallery walk. General suggestions for formal and informal assessment of gallery walks are on the SERC website . Ultimately, students should be able to describe how the insurance industry is adapting to weather and climate-related policy claims; the flood adaptation steps being taken by the Netherlands; strategies used by cities of various sizes (Chicago, New York City, Wangaratta) to adapt to heat waves; and adaptive agricultural responses to drought. This could be assessed orally (for example, at the end of the class meeting as students summarize the answers to the posted gallery walk questions), as a short answer question on an exam, or as a written homework assignment.

(2) The following items represent hypothetical strategies to address climate change. Classify each as either a climate change mitigation strategy or a climate change adaptation strategy by placing an X in the appropriate box.

(3) short answer question: adaptation in Providence, RI (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 380kB Sep15 12)

References and Resources

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• Unit 1: Forecasting Climate Variability and Change: A matter of survival
• Climate Change Adaptation Strategies
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Four students recount stories of changed life, efforts to fight back

For students taking part in Wednesday’s event “Our Climate Change Stories,” the fight against global warming is everybody’s business. To drive that point home, several student-led environmental groups joined forces to organize an event highlighting the personal stories of seven College students who joined the fight in their own communities. The Gazette spoke with four of them. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

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LeMonie L. Hutt ’26

Concentration: History of Science

I’m a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California, and I live on the reservation, which is about an hour away from an actual Target or Costco, over two mountains. What’s special about the Hoopa tribe is that we’ve never stopped practicing our traditional ceremonies. I grew up in a culturally rich, matriarchal society. We have a woman’s coming-of-age ceremony to celebrate a woman’s coming into a leadership role in the community. We had a lot of women serving on the tribal council; my mom herself also served on the council.

Our population is small: 2,000 people. And when I was younger, my family and other families used to rely a lot on natural resources. A lot of our food would come from the environment around us. But that slowly started to dwindle away as I got older because of climate change and the use of our waterways by big agricultural farms. Our water resources also decreased due to fires, and since our culture is so intertwined with our land and natural resources, it has become a lot harder to keep our culture. It is hard to make baskets or jewelry because natural resources are becoming scarce. For the younger generations, it has been hard to grow up without having access to those resources that can allow them to express themselves through culture and art. We see that playing out in a mental health crisis among students because of threats to their culture, which is being taken away.

In my community, there’s a huge uprising in starting to advocate for tribal ecological knowledge to be recognized in the realm of science, especially with cultural burnings, an Indigenous practice that prevents wildfires by starting fires, but also with our gathering practices, including pruning and tending the land, which result in a healthier ecosystem. I was influential in developing a team of my tribe that developed traditional ecological knowledge curriculum to be implemented into the system locally.

We are beginning, as Indigenous people, to be recognized for our role in the climate crisis solution. As we’re becoming aware of how bad the wildfires are in California, scientists and people in general are starting to realize that Indigenous people have been here since time immemorial and that we know how to take care of the land. In that way, we’ve gotten a larger platform for our voices, even though it was caused by extreme environmental damage.

I became an advocate for clean water after seeing my mother and my people protest the environmental damage caused to the Hoopa reservation from the dams on the Klamath and Trinity rivers. I was 8 years old when I gave a speech to the California State Water Board. Water rights is about protecting my culture and my way of life. When I was first starting in my advocacy journey, I thought that being an advocate meant joining political debates, going to California State Water Board meetings, and writing op-eds. But I realized that advocacy was also about taking up space, continuing to practice our culture, and showing that we’re still here and what we value as a people.

Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer

Osasenaga Idahor ’25

Concentration: Environmental Science and Public Policy

I was born and raised in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and that has defined a lot of what I want to do and why I want to do it. Growing up in Hyde Park, I didn’t notice anything being wrong with having like a power plant down the street or the fact that my neighborhood had many manufacturing plants and factories. It was only in high school that I learned that people of color disproportionately live close to power plants and toxic and waste facilities.

There are two moments that galvanized me to act against climate change. I went to Boston Latin High School and took the bus every day to school. I would walk over piles of trash and crabgrass on the way to the bus stop or train station, and in a matter of minutes, I’d arrive at Longwood, a rich area of Boston with lots of hospitals around, where the air is cleaner, and the focus is on public health. That image of a whole different world five miles away in the same city always plays in the back of my mind. That is how environmental injustice shows up for me.

The other moment took place during quarantine. I wanted to raise awareness in my community about environmental injustice. I thought of putting labels on trash cans in my neighborhood to encourage people to not litter, but I realized that it’s not so much about people not caring about their living environments. It’s just that people in certain low-income communities are jaded toward environmental injustice. I realized that I needed to do much more than that.

This summer, I launched a podcast to focus not so much on the global crisis, but on the local scene, where we have the most power to make changes with ripple effects. When we hear about global warming and how it’s threatening polar bears’ existence in years to come, we may feel discouraged and lose sight of how it’s affecting us right now and right here. We lose focus of the local issues and of the small victories that happen in our own communities. Some people think that Hyde Park doesn’t have a climate justice problem because it has lots of trees, but others believe that trees and woods should be preserved. Recently, a group of Hyde Park neighbors protested the sale of Crane Ledge Woods, a 24-acre forest, for a housing development. The project has been delayed for now. There’s so much that is still to be done, but we must turn to our own communities and start making changes there.

I’m also working on becoming a physician because of my interest in science and climate, specifically around human health. The health impacts of climate change are vastly felt in marginalized communities, which have higher heatstroke and asthma rates. Environmental justice is part of human health. Because of my experience and my relationship with growing up in a neighborhood that had to bear disproportionately the impacts of climate change, I think I can be somebody who not only advocates for but can relate to those communities.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Kiani Akina ’25

I live on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii, in a very small town called Kahuku . Our population is 2,000. We have one stoplight. We used to have a gas station; now it’s in the town over. Our sense of community identity is strong.

As far as the impact of climate change in my community, I’ve seen the way beaches and landscapes have changed tremendously from when I was little to now. I remember that whenever we would go to a beach we hadn’t been to in a while, my dad would say, “This looks so different than it did when I was younger.” I would find shells, and my parents would be, “You can look at them now, but make sure you put them back because if you take it, there’s not going to be something for your kids to look at.” I went back home this summer, and when I took my 6-year-old sister to go dive with me, I couldn’t show her all the wildlife I used to see under the water. She’s seeing a fraction of the beauty I got to see. I now wonder, will there be anything left for my children to see?

I’ve also seen the effects of environmental injustice in the proposal for a 30-meter telescope to be built on Mauna Kea, which is a sacred place for native Hawaiians, and more recently, the U.S. military’s leak of jet fuel into Oahu’s main aquifer, which poisoned the water and made people very sick. There is also a lot of nuclear testing in the Pacific, and many people have been forced to relocate.

Native Hawaiians, and Indigenous folk everywhere, have a deep connection with the land and the water, and this is hard for other people to understand. For us, the land and water are living beings, sort of relatives that hold lots of stories that are so connected to our culture and identities.

Hawaiian lives are deeply impacted by climate change and over-tourism, which is not sustainable and is also harmful to the environment. Indigenous people are forced to face the worst and most harmful impacts of climate change when we contribute the least to it. We need to ensure that we incorporate our indigenous ways of life and indigenous knowledge into climate policies to ensure that future generations remain here and enjoy this relationship they are meant to have with the land.

My hope is that governments implement climate policies that incorporate and include Indigenous voices and Indigenous perspectives because the way our ancestors functioned and lived their lives was sustainable. Whatever my work is in the future, I want to contribute to climate policy throughout the Pacific to help make sure that my community and other Indigenous communities are heard and that the policies we’re making are going to be beneficial for them. I also want to work in environmental law so I can help Native Hawaiians get land back and help contribute to Hawaiian sovereignty.

Ricardo Marrero-Alattar ’25

Concentration: Organismic Evolutionary Biology and History of Science with a secondary in Computer Science

I grew up in Puerto Rico. In the past five years, we faced hurricanes, earthquakes, and COVID. There is no question that the worsening climate on our planet is making it more likely for natural disasters to occur, and I want to make clear the stark difference between the impact of climate change in the Global North and the Global South. What we underestimate, in the U.S. and the Global North, is how climate change worsens natural disasters. To us in the Global North, it means a couple more hurricanes, but for the Global South, where most developing countries are located, natural disasters are not ephemeral. They become significant; their gravity multiplies exponentially. Climate change is worse for the Global South because they are less able to recover from the increased volume and gravity of the impact of natural disasters.

Puerto Rico was badly hit by Hurricane Maria five years ago, and people are still suffering to this day because of it. It is because of the catastrophic system failure that took place in the wake of Maria: All systems failed and became too weak to recover, and economically, it made it hard for the island to rebuild. Once the infrastructure is weakened, as well as its ability to recover, the island becomes more vulnerable to the next natural disaster. We just had Hurricane Fiona, which was a Category 1 hurricane, and we felt the damage as if it were Maria, which was Category 5.

When Fiona hit Puerto Rico in September, I was here studying. I was heartbroken and scared. I remembered the horror of watching my people suffer during Hurricane Maria, and I felt hopeless. I plan on going to med school and the School of Public Health, and work as a physician at home like my parents, but my question was: How do I help now? I want to specialize in public health and data science. With a professor’s encouragement, I started working on a database that can provide information to people who need to access the health care they deserve in times of crisis. Ultimately, the goal is to use technology to create a system that will allow the delivery of health information to be easier on the island. But I want to be clear: All of this is an idea. We don’t have a name or an organization to work with, but what we have is hope.

My hope is to extend the reach of what I believe people can perceive when analyzing the impact of climate change on the world. If we wait to implement meaningful climate change action until the effects that are felt in the Global South affect America, then it will be too late. I hope that my story will change the way that people see the climate change fight as, rather than a fight on the home front, as a fight against climate change everywhere. My hope is that this inspires people to look more favorably upon acting now rather than later.

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Case Studies for Climate Change Adaptation

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A list of case studies related to climate change adaptation. Select a tab below to view case studies for a particular interest.

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• Published: 08 October 2022

A participatory student workshop on climate change and sustainability: a comparative case study

• Carole Larose   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0818-2200 1 ,
• Christine Blaisot 2 &
• Eleanor Burke 3  

Sustainable Earth volume  5 , Article number:  3 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Climate change is an environmental and existential issue of great urgency, especially for today’s youth. Until recently, the French national school curriculum had not given students much opportunity to learn about climate change (CC), its causes and repercussions, and mitigating measures to reach sustainable climate conditions. This article describes a six-week participatory, experiential workshop that brought together two groups of French students (one age 10 and the other age 16) to learn and teach each other about CC. Older students learned about the Conference of the Parties, COP21 Paris agreement and the IPCC climate findings and recommendations. Together the two groups developed greater understanding about CC, and proposed concrete environmental actions that they could undertake at home and in their local district to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We examine four products of their collaboration:

slide presentations that they created jointly,

students’ written reflections on learning about sustainability and CC,

the group’s list of proposed personal and family actions to decrease their carbon footprint, and

notes from a meeting with local governmental officials.

We draw inferences from these sources, and extract two recurrent themes in the students’ learning. These themes highlight a mismatch between youth’s sense of urgency to respond to the climate emergency and the older generation’s sluggish pace of addressing it. This article is a qualitative case study of a successful attempt to raise students’ awareness of sustainability and climatic issues, and to involve them in thinking collaboratively with others about the tasks ahead to address the problem of climate change from a local perspective.

Introduction

“Today’s children will likely confront challenges we can hardly begin to imagine in a radically altered, unrecognizable world. Can we responsibly continue preparing them for business as usual? And if not, what can we do to make them ready for a survival game in which wild cards rule?” — Dianne Dumanoski [ 1 ]

In 2015, before sustainability became embedded in the French curriculum, the co-authors of this article believed, like Diane Dumanoski, that today’s children must be prepared for the radically altered world that they stand to inherit. We (Larose and Blaisot) designed an experiential workshop to introduce the basics of sustainability and sustainable development to our students through the lens of climate change. This article will describe and analyze the students’ learning from the workshop.

Currently, sustainability education is required to be present in both the French primary ( école ) and secondary school ( lycée ) curricula; its presence was reinforced in 2019 by the national curriculum agency: Conseil supérieur des programmes [ 2 ]. The initiative is called E3D , which stands for École/Établissement en Démarche de Développement Durable (School Moving Towards Sustainable Development). Through this initiative, every staff member and student in each school building would play a part in the process of implementing concrete solutions in line with the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [ 3 ] in the areas pertaining to school and facility management, such as energy and water usage, waste reduction, recycling and disposal, landscaping, and throughout all levels of classroom lessons. This vision has not yet been fully achieved.

High school teachers are more constrained to a specific curriculum (which currently does not include content on sustainability) in order to prepare students for their level exams. For this reason, our students who chose to take this optional project in Première (age 15–16, equivalent to US junior year), spent an extra hour of learning outside the normal school day for the 6-week duration of the course.

This article describes a six-week collaborative experiential workshop that brought together two groups of French students, (age 10 and ages 15–16) to learn and teach each other about climate change (CC). The older students learned about the Conference of the Parties (COP21) Paris agreement and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate findings and recommendations. Together the two groups developed greater understanding about CC and proposed concrete environmental actions that they could take to their families and their local communities in order to promote climate sustainability. This collaboration was one of four award-winning curriculum projects in the field of sustainable development at the Concours des clés au développement durable (Contest of keys to SD) during France Climate Week in 2015. The award was presented by the Minister of Education, Najat Vallaud Belkasem.

Co-authors Larose and Blaisot undertook this project with their students in 2015, before the national sustainability curriculum was instituted; it occurred at a time when the topic of sustainability became prominent in the news media because of the UN-SDGs [ 3 ] and the UN Climate Change Conference, (The 21st Conference of Parties, or COP 21) held in Paris in November–December 2015. This is one reason why the authors chose to create this particular workshop. It is likely that students were also hearing the news and developed interest in registering for this workshop.

In this article we distinguish between the two age groups by referring to the older learners as ‘ students ’ and to the younger learners as ‘ pupil s’. While the two age groups were at very different developmental levels, their performance in this collaborative project would allow them to learn from and with each other, and gain crucial twenty-first century sustainability literacy skills such as:

Gaining fundamental knowledge about environmental sciences: Many articles are featured by newspapers, television and other social media on issues of sustainability and climate change, but the notions and the terminology remain hazy in the minds of many people.

The ability to assess different kinds and sources of information: Students used scientific approaches to learn how scientists study climate change and make projections into the future, and learned that the models have to take into account many parameters and uncertainties. Climate skeptics use these uncertainties to argue that we are not in a drastic situation. Students learned to rebut such skeptics’ arguments.

Learning about responsible, realistic and hopeful behaviors: Students learned and in turn taught their parents about sustainability and climate change, without succumbing to catastrophic-thinking.

Research question

Our research question was: How can we engage our students and pupils in a learning experience that will make them aware of the challenges of sustainability in our society? What are effective ways of involving them in sustainability issues?

In the Methods section, we describe our six-week experiential workshop that engaged the two groups to learn about sustainability together; we used four of their work-products to assess what they learned and gain insight into how aspects of the workshop promoted their learning. In the Results section we describe these student-pupil work-products:

Informative slide presentations illustrating the learning that they had acquired,

Written reflections on their learning,

A list of personal and family actions for sustainable living, and

Notes from the students’ 2-hour meeting with a town official.

In the Discussion section we discern two themes that emerged from these student-pupil work products and we draw some inferences about their learning during these experiences. These observations and remarks will be of a qualitative nature because of the real-world setting and ungraded nature of our project. As this was a curricular project of an experiential nature for students, pupils and teachers together, the learners are not considered ‘subjects’ of a study, and no special permissions or board reviews were necessary. In the interests of confidentiality, no student is identified by name here; likewise for the town officials whom the students interviewed as part of the project.

Climate change (CC) is one of the biggest challenges of our times and is one of the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) [ 3 ] to transform our world; SDG13 is dedicated to Climate Action. In addition, the climate ramifications of GHG emissions feature in several other SDGs, such as SDG2 zero hunger, SDG3 good health, SDG6 fresh water availability, SDG7 energy efficiency, SDG11 sustainable cities, and SDG16 peace and (climate) justice. In fact, many argue that the climate is at the core of all 17 goals, since it provides the habitable living spaces and food resources we need for survival. In the French high school curriculum, climate change is only taught during the last year, and only when students choose the specialty ‘Biology and Earth Sciences’. In the absence of formal curriculum content, Larose conceived this project because she believes it is crucial that students get involved in this topic earlier in their learning, regardless of their academic studies and specialties. Co-author Blaisot, a teacher in primary school, was equally interested in early learning about sustainability, and both authors decided to organize a 6-week experiential learning collaboration between the two groups of learners.

Eight students and 27 pupils attended the workshop, hoping to gain scientific knowledge about CC. Furthermore, they wanted to understand the COP21 commitments that they were hearing about in the French news. This agreement of 197 negotiating parties marked the first time that a comprehensive universal agreement was reached in the fight against CC. The French president called on the entire world to transform the Paris Accord on Climate into actions to confront this urgent problem [ 4 ].

The two age groups worked independently in their separate schools for the first 3 weeks, to prepare for the joint-sessions with each other to occur in the last 3 weeks. The primary school curriculum system offered the advantage of being able to work on the project for entire days rather than only 1 h per week. As this was a multi-disciplinary project, students and pupils were able to draw on a wide range of disciplines as they delved into learning about climate change and sustainable behaviors .

Table 1 describes the learning experience each group had during each of the 6 weeks.

In November of the following year, the pupils who had been elected “Eco-delegates” by their classmates took part in the youth forum on climate with delegates from other primary, middle and high schools in the Rouen school region, a convention held at the Regional Authority Headquarters. They heard a keynote on the causes and consequences of CC. Then they took the floor to present their ideas for reducing GHG emissions and their impact on the planet. Following this, they took part in thematic workshops. After the convention the pupils took these ideas into the middle school where they presented their project to students in the level ahead of them.

Neither group of students received traditional grades for their work during the workshop. However, to assess what students had learned from the project, the collaborating teachers used evidence from four types of student/pupil work:

Student-pupil-created slide presentations that illustrated the knowledge that they had acquired;

Written reflections on their learning;

Preparations for and participation in a discussion with Mrs. H at the local Town Hall;

Creation of two lists of sustainable-living actions, one for their parents and one to propose to the town authorities.

Co-created slide shows

During the third week of the workshop, the secondary students prepared for meeting the pupils the following week. Each student chose a topic from this list: Consumption, Agriculture, Water Management, Biodiversity, Population migrations within and across national borders, Health, Energy.

They used critical thinking to choose pictures, graphs and statistical figures among resources proposed by their teacher. They were to use these communication supports to explain the worldwide consequences of global warming. Each group of students chose supporting evidence, then showed and explained their choices to the others. The larger group debated and selected the best illustrative evidence, and organized their documents to create a single slideshow.

Similarly at the primary school, the pupils did the same work. Three or four children per group prepared a slideshow using the same topics but concentrating on the more localized consequences of global warming in France. This task was more difficult for them because it was the first time that they had used digital tools to make slideshows. They learned to choose visuals that would illustrate their words, in order to engage their audience.

In week four, the two groups met together: five or six pupils worked with one student on their chosen topic, and both age-groups’ slideshows were used to create a final presentation for each of the eight topics. The following Figs.  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 and 7 show sample illustrations that they selected for each of the eight topics. An explanation of their reasoning follows each figure.

Representative slide from a student presentation about Consumption and climate change. Credit: extrait d’une brochure “Des gaz à effet de serre dans mon assiette” publiée par Réseau action climat France (itinéraire d’un steak haché et émissions de GES) . (The publisher gives permission to use these in public education.) [ 7 ]

Representative slide from a student presentation about Agriculture and climate change ( http://www.reporterre.net/climat-l-agriculture-est-la-source )

Representative slide from a student presentation about Water Resource Management and climate change. https.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/ONERC_FichesIndicateur_glacier.pdf [ 8 ]

Representative slide from student presentation about Biodiversity and climate change. Predicted distribution of vineyards under climate change scenario RCP 8.5 [ 9 ]

Representative slide from student presentation about Population Migrations and climate change. Source: Kit pédagogique le changement climatique p30. https://reseauactionclimat.org/publications/kit-pedagogique-changements-climatiques/ (Publisher gives permission to use these in public education.) [ 10 ]

Representative slide from student presentation on Health and climate change. Source: Kit pédagogique le changement climatique p 40. https://reseauactionclimat.org/publications/kit-pedagogique-changements-climatiques/ [ 11 ] 

Representative slide from student presentation on Energy and climate change. Source: http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/10068/ used in accord with Creative Commons license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ [ 12 ]

The pupils chose these images to speak to the issue of greenhouse gas emission in livestock raising: The steak’s journey from animal to plate helped them explain how food, or specifically meat- production is a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Meat consumption is increasing all over the world but its production requires a lot of energy. Populations are increasing and cereal production has to increase to feed humankind as well. However, arable land areas remain stable, and can no longer increase to meet the need.

The students chose this chart because it astonished them to learn that agriculture is accountable for large amounts of GHG emissions. They were taken aback to learn that most French crops would need to be moved from south to north (especially vineyards, an important crop in France), and that enteric fermentation (digestion of food by livestock and the resulting methane they emit) is a main cause of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

The pupils and the students learned that just 3% of Earth’s water is freshwater and 70% of this is consumed for crop irrigation. They proved that meat production consumes more water than cereals, tying this with the observations made during the work on consumption. They also learned that since resources are unequally spread over the Earth, political tensions over water rights will increase.

The pupils opted to work on the topic of drinking water. The two images of a glacier show its rapid melting in one century. This photo was one they could quickly and easily understand. They also chose a map of France showing the state of groundwater resources and regional water tables. It helped them learn about rainwater flow issues. The final image they chose shows the quantities of water consumed in different daily uses. It allowed them to question their own water usage for things like flushing the toilet and washing the car.

The pupils chose to use this map of French vineyards because it isn’t only about plants that grow in their own region. French vineyards characteristically grow south of the Loire River (light pink areas on map). If climate warming causes viticulture to move northward (green areas) into the students’ region of Normandy, as the scenario map predicts, this would change the French countrysides, with the disappearance of vineyards where they currently exist (gray areas); this could cause an economic disruption affecting both the wine and tourism industries. The students used a similar map to show that other plants (oak and beech trees, e.g.) will likely disappear from their current habitat regions in northern France.

The students learned from these maps that global warming has a direct effect on biodiversity, and that current species can either: vanish, be forced to migrate, or benefit from the change and increase their areas of distribution at the risk of threatening the native species in the areas they overtake.

The students had not previously considered the huge impact of the rise in sea level on coastal populations, where one-fifth of the world’s people live, threatened by rising seas and floods. They also learned that loss of coastal population centers, homes and livelihoods would be a disaster for the poorest populations, who would lose everything they had, without financial or skill resources to replace their losses.

The pupils were quite interested in the unit on health, and they found it difficult to choose which of the many illustrations of the effects of climate change on health they wanted to use in their presentation. They chose a map showing the appearance and spread of the tiger mosquito, a disease vector, into France. The map shows that climate warming in France is creating a suitable habitat for the mosquito, and thus for the appearance of illnesses formerly unknown in French metropolitan areas. They also chose a graph showing the relationship between the increase in temperatures and the number of deaths during heatwaves. The students added information on air pollution especially linked to the formation of tropospheric ozone and the consequences on respiratory diseases, risks of sunstroke, dehydration, and cancers.

The students chose this chart to show that fossil energy consumption increases due to the growth in the number of people on Earth, resultsing in more emissions of GHG. They also learned the amounts of GHG stemming from energy production and the sites of energy waste within a house. This illustration allowed them to reflect on ways to economize on energy usage in their daily lives.

Student reflections on their workshop experience

The feedback that students provided demonstrated their interest in this topic and indicated which skills they felt the project had encouraged them to develop. Table  2 presents direct quotes from students in both age groups. These quotes highlight their reflections on their learning.

The list of lifestyle changes created by the students

The pupils had strong ideas about solutions to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases. We worked on two axes: what children could do at their level and what adults should do at their level. For the younger learners, it seemed simple: they reasoned that if we know the solution to the problem, we apply it. They have not yet grasped the economic complexities or international negotiations that this can generate. Some of their proposals were not easily practicable, such as:

Vehicles that consume fossil fuel must be banned immediately and replaced by biofuel or electric vehicles.

We have to eliminate power plants that generate energy from fossil fuels and just use renewable energy sources.

Through discussion, the two age groups co-created a list of feasible activities they could employ and suggest in their meetings with town officials. Table  3 summarizes all the proposals the group discussed.

After presenting these proposals at Town Hall, the learners discussed their proposals with their families. Thus, parents decided to make some commitments.

Table  4 shows commitments made by each group, students, families, and local officials. Because the school year ended and students moved on to new settings, it was not possible to follow up on how well the family commitments were followed. The pollinator garden, however, was completed at the primary school the year just after the project, as seen in Fig.  8 .

Pupils working in the pollinator garden

Conversation with an agent at the town hall

This meeting was organized between four students and an agent from the municipal sustainable development department. Students had prepared their questions, but time was too short to broach all the topics. Traffic circulation problems in town was the first topic of discussion. Students stated the case that more cycle lanes and pedestrian streets were needed in Rouen. In response, the agent told them that store-owners were in need of more parking spaces in front of their shops. However, she said that the city centre policy has changed, the parking duration is shorter and the price higher, to park cars. The number of buses is increasing, and rides were modified to respond to the needs of inhabitants. Students replied that the current rate is very expensive even for them and asked if city councilors would consider lowering rates. Her answer was that this subject would require examination. About urban travel, students suggested encouraging carpooling. The agent mentioned that the mayor pressured staff members to create carpools by setting up an intranet to communicate. Finally, students talked about soft modes of transport for the pupils between school and home. She replied that, “Some pedibuses are organized in partnership with the school, families and the town hall,” and she added that she was aware that this was not enough without really proposing solutions.

Students raised a second topic: wastage at the school cafeteria. The agent explained that a young employee had been hired to investigate this subject; this answer seemed to satisfy the students.

They made a third suggestion: that the school could reduce its carbon footprint by serving a vegetarian lunch once a week. The students found the response disconcerting and frustrating: She told them, “Parents are not ready for that.” (Contemporaneous notes from this meeting are in Additional file 1 .)

The pupils held a separate but similar meeting with another town official, with similar results. The conversations are analyzed in the discussion section.

As we study and reflect on the evidence of the students’ learning from this project, we have discerned two salient themes in their work. First, the collaboration was a crucial component of their learning; and second, they are compelled to take action in the struggle to limit climate change, and they are witnessing the utter failure of the adults’ political systems to treat the problem as the emergency that it is.

Meeting with and teaching kids of another age group was “wonderful”

The students found the cross-age-group meeting wonderful* because they were amazed* by the pupils’ spontaneity and by the depth of knowledge that the younger ones had already learned with their teacher. The pupils were very impressed by the size of the high school and a little intimidated by the older students; however, when the groups were formed, they quickly lost this shyness. *(One student described the first meeting as merveilleux .)

Everyone’s attention was focused on their work. While organizing the final slide show they discussed amongst themselves without any need of adult input. After the presentations, the pupils and students created the list of lifestyle changes; this discussion, too, was very autonomous. The students listened respectfully to suggestions from the pupils, who were glad because the older ones took their ideas seriously. In this situation, it seems that everybody was equal, every idea from each of them allowed the group to seek solutions. They had a unified goal: learning about climate change issues, sharing information and proposing solutions. They all shared the same convictions that society must mobilize against climate change.

The pupils became very aware that the problems of climate change concern everyone, and no matter what one’s age, one can participate and act for the environment. They were able to exchange views with the students about the worldwide climate situation; although they worked mostly on French climate events and information, they could bring their broader understanding to it. They were also able to imagine their future selves because they could see that they would become students in just a few years.

Studies abound in the past 20 years’ academic literature, showing that engaging home and family with students’ learning at school increases the student’s investment in their learning and their long term success in school [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. The conversation our students had with their parents about pro-climate actions they could take as a family is an example of the way that this project contributed to family engagement in student learning. The parents expressed amazement at the involvement of pupils and students to find solutions to mitigate the consequences of climate change.

Young people feel an urgent need to address climate change-- NOW

Their civic actions (“Taking civic action” section) led the students to a keen awareness that the slow pace of adults’ willingness to make change is deepening the injustices caused by climate change (“Youth sense of climate injustices” section), and is woefully insufficient (“Frustration with slow pace of adult leadership” section) for the current crisis.

Taking civic action

As the students in this collaboration learned about the unsustainable nature of the accumulating repercussions of climate change, they developed a pressing desire to take civic action. As one student said, “This is our present and our future.” Youths see that their own future, indeed the future of the world’s population is here, now. There is no time to waste.

Both groups of our students decided to “think globally and act locally” by taking their proposals to two different town hall officials. In both cases, the government official listened sympathetically, then tried to explain that changes cannot happen overnight, and must go through channels of the political system. Here are sample responses to the student’s requests:

For lower bus fares: “The topic requires study.”

For bike lanes for safer passage to school: “The store-owners’ desire more parking spaces, so bike lanes aren’t easily created in town.”

For the city to encourage carpooling: “The mayor encourages it for town employees, but we recognize this is not enough.”

To address school lunchroom food waste: “A young person has been hired to investigate this subject.”

To the proposal to serve meatless lunch 1 day per week to reduce the school’s carbon footprint: “Parents are not ready for that.” [The students didn’t challenge this assumption, but certainly could have.]

The pupils took their similar positions to a different town hall agent. They inquired about the possibility of getting bicycle trails established so they could ride their bikes to school safely. His response: “This is “under study--but it doesn’t depend solely on the mayor’s office/town hall government, and it is complicated to create bike paths where there had not been foresight to make a place for them when the roads were originally constructed.”

The children did achieve two small victories in their attempts to influence local environmental policies. They wanted to raise awareness among their fellow students against food waste at the school lunchroom. This demand was granted, and the class delegates from now on can participate in school lunch planning groups in the school that take place every trimester. The pupils created an informative poster campaign to educate their peers.

Following the presentation of their project to the town hall agent, the pupil municipal councilors worked on installing pollinator gardens at school and around town, with the goal of promoting biodiversity. They also posted informative signs about beneficial insects that inhabit these municipal gardens.

Youth sense of climate injustices

All the students expressed a desire “to understand the causes and consequences of climate change in order to mobilize against it.” By studying the causes of climate change, the youth learned that human activities have impacts on the environment. They understood that CC would affect not only their lives but also the lives of people in poorer countries, with even more disastrous consequences: desertification, depletion of water resources, salinization of soil, rising ocean levels.

They learned that the hardships of climate change are falling first upon regions where the people have few or no resources to struggle for survival through these impending crises. This knowledge raised their awareness of the world-leaders’ failure to address climate change with any urgency for the sake of environmental justice and addressing human suffering. The students began to sense that they have a stronger moral compass than adult politicians, when it comes to speaking out for climate justice to ameliorate the suffering of the world’s less resourced people.

In the last week of the project, the students visited an exhibition on the Amazon rainforest. Both the students and the pupils wondered, “Why should we worry about the Amazon rainforest?” At the exhibit they learned that the forest is an asset for the storage of greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, it is destroyed to plant crops and breed cattle, which both release yet more methane. As the children see it, “Everyone knows but nobody does anything.” It is really difficult for young people to understand why adults do not take responsibility in the face of this disaster.

Frustration with slow pace of adult leadership

During one of the slide presentations, a pupil lamented, “The polar bears will disappear!” Young people feel deep emotional ties with animals in general, and charismatic animals like polar bears, pandas, and whales particularly evoke these feelings. The students learned that Earth is going through a sixth major biological extinction crisis. They know that during geological time there have already been large-scale extinctions which were due to natural causes. They also know that the species that survived these crises have diversified. However, they learned that this current crisis has anthropogenic causes and is occurring faster than past ones. Once again, they wonder why adults won’t act swiftly and decisively to halt this extinction crisis.

As they learned about the world leaders’ responses to climate change (or lack thereof), one of the students stated with dismay, “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was created at the end of 1988 and almost nothing has been done. We need more rapid change to respond to the urgency of climate change.” They inquired, “Why did adults not react sooner and why are their actions still only moderate? Why is there a gap between what adults say and what they actually do?” Sylvie Granon, researcher at neurosciences institute in Paris-Saclay, who is co-writer of a chapter in the book “ Le Souci de la nature ” suggests the reason adults may be so slow to respond attributes blame to the human brain: “ Le changement est extrêmement énergivore et stressant pour l’organisme, qui va essayer de diminuer l’impact de ce stress en adoptant les comportements les plus automatiques et les plus rassurants possible.” (Translation: Change is extremely energy-consuming and stressful for organisms, which try to diminish the impact of this stress by adopting automatic habitual behaviors which serve to reassure as much as possible) [ 16 ]. This is not meant to excuse the leaders’ slow response, but merely as a possible explanation for it. The young generation is more clear-headed and realistic about the urgency of the problem than the adults who make the laws and affect their future.

The slow, politically motivated adult tactics in the face of what the students see as a blazing emergency frustrate young people wherever they try to sound an alarm to awaken adults to the problem, as seen in other articles in this collection (Luna and Mearman; Burke et al.) [ 17 , 18 ] and around the world in youth climate movements [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. As one young German activist states,

“What the world community is doing with the planet, will be described one day as the biggest political failure of our time.” [ 20 ]

This aptly describes how our students felt after their encounters with adults in charge at the municipal level, and after studying about the painfully slow processes of change as world leaders quibble over details of climate agreements. And it has been laid at the young people’s doorstep. Their generation did not cause the problems but in their adult lifetimes the bill is coming due for the neglect of the preceding ones. A political failure, indeed; and an economic and humanitarian disaster of global proportions are the burdens today’s youth, as tomorrow’s leaders, will have to confront.

The aim of this collaborative learning project was to engage our students in a learning experience that would make them aware of the challenges of sustainability in our society. We hoped to create an effective way to involve them in sustainability issues at a personal and local level. At the end of this workshop, the students learned that the greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon but that the increase in greenhouse gases is anthropogenic, or human-caused. From the youngest to the oldest, they understood why a mobilization from simple citizens to elected representatives is necessary, in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and find mitigated responses to reduce the consequences of the change already underway.

The solutions proposed by the students of this workshop were to show how each person at their level of skills can have a positive influence on the problem of climate change. Our students judged that the decisions made by adults regarding these problems were not equal to the high stakes for our planet.

Two strong themes emerged from student work products: (1) The collaboration of two age groups proved to be more than the sum of its parts; (2) Unnerved by the slow response from the adult world of politics, the students felt compelled to take immediate personal and civic action to confront climate change.

Cross-age and cross disciplinary collaborations such as this are not easily created in public schools. Sustainable issues are now appearing in the French curriculum at different levels at school, and beginning to involve non-teaching staff, as well (e.g. food services, facilities managers). In primary school, a single classroom teacher teaches all subject matters to the pupils. In secondary schools, any teacher could teach climate change; however, it is mainly science and social studies teachers who incorporate climate curriculum in their courses.

Furthermore, teachers who teach these topics rarely consult each other. Many say that they have no time to collaborate and organize a multi-disciplinary project with their students, although a multitude of studies have shown that cross-disciplinary teaching is an excellent way to create a better learning situation for students; all their lessons are connected and they can understand the real-life links among all the subject areas [ 23 ]. The boundaries between “biology” and “math” and “language arts” evaporate, and learners can create a meaningful schema of how the world functions as an ecosystem.

The project’s significance lies in the students’ ability to make proposals to mobilize the attention of their classmates, their teachers, their parents and adults in general. The teacher’s role is, of course, to allow students to develop knowledge to understand climate change and also to support the various actions often implemented by students to do their part in mitigating its consequences.

This is just one small example of the growth that occurred when two groups of students came together to share their learning about sustainability and take action to confront climate change. The themes we heard in the students’ work products represent only their own experience, but we draw parallels to the voices of other young people the world over who are crying out with the same voice.

One main area for future development is the training of teachers. Even though they have the resources to teach sustainable development issues, many do not feel ready to teach this topic. Teachers may think that teaching sustainable issues is difficult because the content of the curriculum is not clearly identified. They feel that these topics are not the priority for students because no graduation assessments (national exams) in this field exist.

If sustainability is to be part of the school curriculum, pre-service educator training must include skill development in teaching about sustainability in and across subject area ‘silos’. In-service professional development is needed for mid-career teachers, to provide a scientific refresher as well as workshops to model project ideas. School administrators must design schedules with common meeting times so teachers can successfully design integrated projects across disciplines; such collaborations will serve to break down the false disciplinary boundaries and to reduce teachers’ fears about designing new curricular lessons. The conclusion must be optimistic; everyone is now aware of the urgency to take actions to mitigate the consequences of global warming. Even though actions are currently insufficient, the world’s youth urge adults to take responsibility; the temperature is rising, and the increasing frequency of “100-year storms,” glacial-melt floods, arctic jetstream wobbling, wildfires, and droughts all indicate that climate instability has reached crisis level. The faster and stronger we respond, the better for all the world’s creatures.

Availability of data and materials

No data was collected during this journey in civic participation. All relevant materials are included in this article, or as additional files.

Dumanoski D. The end of the long summer: why we must remake our civilization to survive on a volatile earth. New York: Three Rivers Press, Random House; 2009.

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Source: extrait d'une brochure “Des gaz à effet de serre dans mon assiette” publiée par Réseau action climat France (itinéraire d’un steak haché et émissions de GES) (Publisher gives permission to use these in public education.)

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Source: kit pédagogique le changement climatique p36. https://reseauactionclimat.org/publications/kit-pedagogique-changements-climatiques/ (Publisher gives permission to use these in French public education.). Original source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/03/1210127110

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the pupils and students who participated in this project.

We thank our inspectors for their listening and support as well as their involvement in sustainable issues: Patrice Favier and Jean-Marc Bellamy. We are also thankful to the ministry of national education in France which awarded this project at the Concours des clés au développement durable during France Climate Week in 2015. It was presented by the Minister of Education, Najat Vallaud Belkasem.

We also offer gratitude to the staff at IFE in Lyon who are involved in the project “tremplin pour l’enseignement des sciences: climat et météo”: Charles-Henri Eyraud, Eric Le Jan, Gérard Vidal.

We also wish to thank the members of the Sustainable Earth guest editorial board who offered feedback on earlier drafts of the manuscript, especially David Crookall, Gillian Bowser, and Jaimie Cloud.

Not applicable. This was a public school curricular and extracurricular experience.

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Carole Larose

L’école Edouard Herriot du Mesnil Esnard, Rouen, France

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The co-authors each contributed sections to the account: CL contributed information pertaining to the students’ experiences and work products; CB contributed information about the pupils’ experiences and work products; EB contributed organizational suggestions and English language translations; all three authors contributed to thematic analysis of the results. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

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Carole Larose: Biology and Geology Teacher in a high school (lycée Corneille in Rouen), teacher-trainer in Académie de Rouen; partner-teacher at IFE-ENS-Lyon (Institut Français de l’Education, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon) for the project “Tremplin pour l’enseignement des sciences: climat et météo.” (Springboard for science teaching: climate and weather.)

Christine Blaisot: primary school teacher (École Edouard Herriot Le Mesnil-Esnard); Teacher-trainer especially in Sciences. Membre de l’IREM (Institut de Recherche dans l’Enseignement des Mathématiques) de Rouen.

Eleanor Burke: Lincoln-Sudbury High School Associate Principal, Retired (2017); MA Sustainability and Environmental Management, Harvard University Extension; M.Ed. Bilingual Education, Antioch University; BA. Spanish and Psychology, Duke University, Durham, NC.

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Notes from students’ meeting with town hall official.

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Larose, C., Blaisot, C. & Burke, E. A participatory student workshop on climate change and sustainability: a comparative case study. Sustain Earth 5 , 3 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42055-022-00048-x

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Field trip lets students study climate change in the living lab of Eastern California.

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When it comes to climate change, California provides an ideal case study. And Scot Miller wants his students to be where the science is.

Miller, an assistant professor in the Whiting School of Engineering, took students on a field trip to Death Valley this spring to round out their classwork for the seminar Case Studies in Climate Change. The trip was designed to give the group a thorough understanding of how the Earth’s climate has fluctuated over time, how those fluctuations can be traced in the physical environment, and how one state – California – is managing repercussions from the rapid, human-made changes underway now.

Studying the past to understand the present

Climate change is not a new phenomenon. Over the past several million years, the Earth's climate has changed dramatically, with periods dominated by roaming glaciers and even a “snowball Earth” phase, when the entire globe was covered in ice.

Death Valley National Park and Eastern California are excellent locations to observe evidence of these changes, says Miller. “The region is a hub of global research on past climate change.”

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In order to understand climate trends and impacts, Miller’s students studied and did field work in the areas of geology, ecology, chemistry, meteorology, hydrology, and even public policy.

Activities included mapping and interpreting geological formations that show how the Earth swung from cold to hot climate extremes, measuring trees in different ecosystems to estimate how much carbon is locked up in certain ecosystems, and then modeling how carbon storage may change as those ecosystems adjust to a changing climate, collecting tree cores to observe variations in climate that stressed or benefited trees, and evaluating how California’s policies improve, or in some cases worsen climate stresses.

"The class was an amazing opportunity to learn about our climate not only through books and pictures but also through the experience of seeing the evidence of a changing climate in person,” said student Madi Miro. “It was definitely one of the best experiences I was able to have at Hopkins."

For Miller, it’s important for students to learn not just about how climate is changing, but also about how scientists track the magnitude and impacts of climate change.

“I strongly believe that field-based and experiential learning can bring academic material to life. While in the field, we can connect academic climate science and academic discussions of policy with real-world climate impacts that are already starting to occur,” he says. “Climate change is more than an abstract academic subject. It’s a phenomenon that’s happening in the here and now, and we can see these impacts around us if we know where to look.”

Environmental Health and Engineering is a cross-divisional department spanning the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Whiting School of Engineering. This hybrid department is uniquely designed to lead pioneering research and prepare the next generation of scholars to solve critical and complex issues at the interface of public health and engineering.

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Students use primary resources to investigate three case studies of environmental change, including how the combined effects of sea level rise and sinking land are projected to impact the Louisiana coast this century, how hurricanes affect the coast, and how fisheries are impacted due to environmental change.

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The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials .

• Teaching Tips Invite students to explore other coastal cities that they are interested in to support a personal investment in sea-level rise projections. If students are not obviously connected to coastal communities, invite them to explore how they may be impacted through supply-chain disruptions, or the challenges faced by a hurricane-response team. NOAA's Digital Coast Sea Level Rise Viewer has projections for sea level rise due to climate change for a lot of specific locations around the country. It could be useful for students who live on the coast or have family members who live on the coast to investigate how the regions where they or they families live will be impacted by sea level rise. This lesson is part of an eight-section curriculum unit. While not all sections have been reviewed by CLEAN, teachers have the opportunity to use the curriculum to develop a culminating project.
• About the Science This collection of activities investigates topics like sea-level rise, hurricanes, and impacts on fisheries by using an assortment of learning tools such as a sea-level rise model from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA, and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. It is the third lesson in an 8 part series called Project Resilience which seeks to teach students about environmental issues in gulf coast communities. Passed initial science review - expert science review pending.
• About the Pedagogy This resource includes a powerpoint with embedded videos (10-20 minutes in length) and discussion questions in addition to student worksheets and links to associated computer models. Students are able to explore simple models to understand how managers' actions can mitigate climate change scenarios in the gulf coast community. Student sheets help support an understanding of the material and a deeper understanding of vulnerability along the coastal USA. This resource also includes the opportunity to extend several activities with additional research and reflections for students. Students will analyze sea level rise data (lesson 1) and hurricane data (lesson 2). They will also learn how sea level rise and hurricanes can impact fisheries (lesson 3). The lesson uses data analysis, worksheets, and class discussion-based methods. A variety of different activities with varied modalities (data shown visually, with numbers, and with words) will help engage diverse types of learners. Students will need a prior understanding that human-caused climate change impacts sea level rise. This is a highly organized activity with thoughtful teaching guides. Each lesson is tagged with Louisiana Student Standards for Science and NGSS labels.
• Technical Details/Ease of Use This resource is easier to use if there is access to a computer lab. Computers with internet are required to navigate NOAA's Digital Coast Sea Level Rise Viewer.

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A Community Effort Stems Runoff to Safeguard Corals in Puerto Rico

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A Road-Flooding Fix for a California State Park

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Addressing Links Between Climate and Public Health in Alaska Native Villages

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After Katrina, Health Care Facility's Infrastructure Planned to Withstand Future Flooding

After Record-Breaking Rains, a Major Medical Center's Hazard Mitigation Plan Improves Resilience

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American Rivers: Increasing Community and Ecological resilience by Removing a Patapsco River Fish Barrier

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Assessing the Timing and Extent of Coastal Change in Western Alaska

Balancing Variable Water Supply With Increasing Demand in a Changing Climate

Battling Blazes Across Borders

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• Published: 26 March 2021

Environmental problems and Geographic education. A case study: Learning about the climate and landscape in Ontinyent (Spain)

• Benito Campo-Pais   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7675-7788 1 ,
• Antonio José Morales-Hernández 1 ,
• Álvaro Morote-Seguido 1 &
• Xosé Manuel Souto-González   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1480-327X 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  8 , Article number:  90 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Environmental studies

Cultural perceptions of the environment bring us back to elements and factors guided by “natural” cause-effect principles. It seems that academic education has had little effect on the manner and results of learning about changes in the local landscape, especially as regards rational explanations. There is considerable difficulty relating academic concepts about the climate to transformations in the environmental landscape. Teaching tasks are mediatized due to the use of rigorous and precise concepts which facilitate functional and satisfactory learning. This is the objective of the research this article aims to undertake, for which we have chosen the case of Ontinyent (Spain). This research will include two parts: the first aims to identify problems in geographical education of the climate, and the second applies to didactic suggestions for improvement. Methodologically, this study involves qualitative, non-experimental, research-oriented toward change, which purports to understand the educational reality. Our sample included a total of 431 students. Moreover, a semi-structured interview, conducted with teachers in schools and universities in Ontinyent, was organized. Fourteen teachers were interviewed, including two who participated as research professors in the action-research method. The study revealed that students’ conceptual and stereotypical errors, in the different educational stages, vary according to the type (climate, weather, climate change, landscape) and stage (Primary, Secondary, University). They are persistent and continuous, given that they are repeated and appear anchored in the ideas and knowledge development of students regarding the problems and the study of the climate throughout their education.

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“The spring, the summer,

The childing autumn, angry winter, change

Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,

By their increase, now knows not which is which:

And this same progeny of evils comes

From our debate, from our dissension”

(W. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream , cited in Kitcher and Fox, 2019 )

Introduction

Traditionally, school-taught geography has focused on studying the relationships between physical and cultural factors in the organization of the environment (Capel, 1981 , 1984 ; Graves, 1985 ). Climate change and the environmental impact are two representative examples that have had an impact on how the research group S ocials Footnote 1 has planned educational activities.

In this vein, the sixth Global Environment Outlook report (GEO 6) declared that climate change is a matter of priority that affects both human (including human health) and natural systems (the air, biological diversity, freshwater, the oceans, and the earth) and alters the complex interactions between these systems (UNEP, 2019 , p. 10).

Furthermore, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development expresses, through Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13), the need to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” (United Nations, 2015 , p. 16). All of this leads us to reflect on the way in which we learn about and understand the concept of climate and its impact on the landscape, and vice versa, in order to take measures, as a critical and active citizen, which could reverse the current emergency situation facing the planet’s climate.

Within the group Socials (University of Valencia, Spain), we are developing a line of didactic research related to socio-environmental education to analyze the obstacles which hinder learning about the climate and landscape in an academic setting. This includes the following: (1) The lack of an interdisciplinary approach to understand the impact on socio-ecological systems from a glocal perspective; (2) The disconnection between scholarly academic knowledge related to the climate/landscape and the reality experienced by students, which allow for geographic conceptualization and an understanding of the world from school-taught geography (Cavalcanti, 2017 ); (3) The absence of analysis of the influence of social representations (Moscovici, 1961 ) on the perception of the environment (Reigota, 2001 ) related to the interaction between climate and landscape; (4) The need to boost active participation (Hart, 1993 ) in order to implement strategies and measures related to climate change mitigation and adaptation; and (5) The accuracy of using active territoriality (Dematteis and Governa, 2005 ) to create emotional links with the territory we must manage (Morales, Santana and Sánchez, 2017 ), due to its particular impact on climate and landscape factors.

All of this leads us to re-evaluate the importance of analyzing cultural perceptions of the environment to determine the factors which have an impact on environmental transformation, starting from the paradigm Education for Eco-Social Transformation. The aim is to encourage the inclusion thereof in the academic curriculum (González, 2018 ). This is a line of study we have already tackled through the analysis of the trialectics of spatiality, where we reconsidered the Piaget taxonomy of lived, objective, and conceived spaces (Hannoun, 1977 ). We aimed to further our understanding of space through lived emotions, the cultural perceptions which create spatial stereotypes, and the conceived space, a result of the actions taken by political and economic leaders in the country (Souto, 2016 , 2018a ). This conceptual modification helped us understand the environment as a process of intellectual construction, like a reflection of a physical reality conceived with emotions and social filters. In other words, this is coherent with what we consider in our research proposal.

Our approach to the problem

Local geographical studies are methodologically similar to what are known as case studies in educational research. To this effect, it is worthwhile recalling that a local case is specific, but it is not unique or unrepeatable. That is to say, there are aspects particular to the social and territorial context, but the explanatory factors refer us to theories that have been developed around other comparative analyses. In this vein, the work we are presenting here, as a case study of climate and landscape education in Ontinyent (Spain), answers three basic questions which outline the problem.

Firstly, what is the role of the academic system in explaining everyday issues? If climate change and the perception of changes in the landscape are of social concern, we must specify whether the academic system should codify aspects of these expectations in a conceptual corpus. This can be done through a series of educational activities and by seeking answers to events that may be communicated with explanations in a public sphere. This will be the main objective of this study.

Secondly, we wonder what specific disciplinary knowledge can contribute? In the case of geography, due to its interdisciplinary links, it will be useful to determine its impact on academic knowledge and, consequently, the construction of a public opinion regarding everyday issues. How can an understanding of geography affect the development of a critical theory which questions the practical meaning of everyday life?

Finally, a significant contribution to this study: what conclusions can we draw from the social representations of spontaneous knowledge in developing social arguments? We want to know to what extent representations of daily practicality present an obstacle to developing independent knowledge and thus render conceptual disciplinary knowledge useful for arguing in public opinion debates influencing common sense and determining our everyday practicality. We wanted to exemplify this with ideas provided by students and teachers from schools in the region.

When looking at the relationships between stages, from global phenomena to local measures with eco-geographical dynamics and where anthropogenic activities are included as explanatory factors, school and university students’ ideas about the climate and the lived and conceived landscape do not tend to be included in a subjective way. This fact contradicts the definition itself of the landscape set out in the European Landscape Convention, by not taking into account the territorial perception of the population (Council of Europe, 2000 ).

The central idea of our line of research points to using students’ personal and social perceptions as a starting point to develop basic knowledge about the climate and landscape. We question spontaneous concepts to explain the landscape in terms of the climate and create a certain environment (microclimate, evapotranspiration, sunlight…).

In this vein, students taking the Research in Social Science Didactics: Geography postgraduate programs (University of Valencia) have produced several master’s and Doctoral Theses which deal with the existing relationship between social representations and environmental education Footnote 2 . Some of this research is related to the EcoRiba Footnote 3 project, with the aim of understanding the importance of linking this didactic research to integral education about the local environment, in order to promote more sustainable and supportive interactions both in a local and global setting (Morales and García, 2016 ; Morales, 2017 ; Morales, 2018 ). It is a way of integrating academic studies into social and civic renown, an academic construction of an educational public space for the local community.

The research context

Studies about “marginalised students” Footnote 4 as examples of the realities of academic failure, but also of second chances, present arguments about what happens in the teaching and thus the didactics of geography. Analyzing this set of school students provides evidence linking failure with teachers’ and students’ personal narratives to understand what is concealed (Campo, Ciscar, and Souto, 2014 ; García Rubio and Souto, 2020 ). As such, it was possible to carry out an assessment, using social representations, of academic knowledge which facilitates improvement options at different educational stages, including the experiences of marginalized students (Campo, 2014 ). These representations also challenge academic traditions and routines, presenting obstacles and causing difficulties teaching and learning geography (Canet et al., 2018 ; Campo et al., 2019 ). These studies represent the instruction and methodological arguments that are part of the rational and personal reasons for taking on this research: learning difficulties at school, social representations in educational research of geography didactics, and the question of innovation as a requirement for educational improvement.

We have pinpointed these principles for a research topic. Learning about the climate and landscape is fundamental for students to understand environmental changes and problems and, moreover, is part of geography didactics both in basic education (Tonda and Sebastiá, 2003 ; Jaén and Barbudo, 2010 ; García de la Vega, 2014 ; Martínez and López, 2016 ; Olcina, 2017 ; Martínez and Olcina, 2019 ), and in the work of students training to become teachers (Valbuena and Valverde, 2006 ; Boon, 2014 ; Souto, 2018a ; Morote et al., 2019 ) who highlight the dilemmas and perceptions of geography or climate change (González and Maldonado, 2014 ; Chang and Pascua, 2016 ). In our case, we are mainly concerned with observing what is happening in classrooms. Students make explanations about climate problems which are full of mistakes and stereotypes produced by the trivialization of some scientific concepts shared by the mass media (Olcina and Martín, 1999 ; Martín-Vide, 2009 ). In order to analyze students’ education about the climate and landscape, we must identify teaching practices (Souto, 2013 , 2018a ) and reveal what students know. In both cases, we are guided by various studies focused on conceptions, ideas, and representations (Gil, 1994 ; García Pérez, 2002 , 2004 ; Kindelan, 2013 ; Bajo, 2016 ; Santana, 2019 ; García-Monteagudo, 2019 ) which, stemming from research and interest in the psychology of learning, aim to understand student mistakes and make constructive suggestions based on models focused on student learning. This starts with their existing knowledge, moving on to what students have been taught, and finally observing the impact of the media on their education. In this way, theoretical tenets of social representations will allow us to interpret what is happening, based on referential systems and enabling categories that classify contexts, phenomena, or individuals (Jodelet, 1991 ). We use these educational research theories with the pertinent epistemological awareness (Castorina and Barreiro, 2012 ) which proves the representations observed in school geography (Souto and García, 2016 ) among the population as regards climate change (Heras, 2015 ; Alatorre-Frenk et al., 2016 ) and the landscape (Santana et al., 2014 ) or among students and teachers in the practice thereof (Domingos, 2000 ).

This objective corresponds with a line of research Footnote 5 linked to doctoral research Footnote 6 , which outlines its idiographic, explanatory, and applied nature (Bisquerra, 2009 ). First, it is idiographic due to the approach for understanding and interpreting the unique nature of school geography lessons on the climate and landscape as curricular content. Secondly, it is explanatory because it claims to clarify what is happening in teaching-learning processes. Finally, it is applied in nature because it aims to transform the conditions of didactic activities and introduce improvements in the teaching-learning process of geography using real-life experiences from schools in Ontinyent (Spain). This research will include two parts: the first aims to identify problems in geographical education of the climate, and the second applies to didactic suggestions for improvement.

In this article, we will develop the first part—assessing the topic we outlined above. Our hypothesis indicates that geography lessons about the climate, school traditions, and the mass media lead to knowledge shaped by stereotypes and conceptual mistakes which are exposed in children’s education and remain present in higher education.

Methodology

This study involves qualitative, non-experimental, research-oriented toward change, which purports to understand the educational reality. As such, an open and mixed design is most suitable, which adapts to the knowledge observed during the study. This justifies the analytical study we propose for this research. We selected the case study (Stake, 1999 , Álvarez and San Fabián, 2012 ) as a way of analyzing how students in Ontinyent (Valencia) learn about the region’s climate and landscape. Given the study’s characteristics and the objective of making the quantity of information manageable and systematizing the analysis (Goetz and Lecompte, 1988 ; Miles and Huberman, 1994 ; Rodríguez et al., 1996 ; Rodríguez et al., 2005 ) we have used a combination of quantitative techniques, which make statistical analysis possible (Gil, 2003 ), and qualitative techniques, which facilitate content analysis, for the data analysis. This combination of techniques is used in case studies to further explore explanations for the phenomena analyzed, with the aim of making the quantity of information manageable (Bisquerra, 2009 ).

It is worthwhile outlining the sample in context for assessment purposes. The sampling technique used is non-probabilistic for convenience and accessibility (Bisquerra, 2009 ; Otzen and Manterola, 2017 ). We chose the municipality of Ontinyent due to adjustment reasons and opportunity criteria. On the one hand, the population of Ontinyent assures a sample size that is representative of a concrete population: the innovation program Footnote 7 provided access to school and university settings in this municipality which has a population of 35,534 Footnote 8 (2016) and boasts educational centers across the different educational stages: Kindergarten, Primary, Secondary, and University. In other words, we can carry out a transversal study of children’s education about the climate throughout the different educational stages, with different chronological ages, at the same time and encompassing the entire school and university education of one person. On the other hand, Ontinyent, as shown in Fig. 1 is a municipality in the Community of Valencia (Spain) with specific climatic conditions due to its location 47 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. It has a typical Mediterranean climate or, according to the Koppen classification, a semi-arid cold climate with mild winters and hot summers (Guerra, 2018 ).

Ontinyent is located within Valencian Community (Spain). Self-elaborated map based on Google Earth data.

During the 2015–16 academic year, between May and December 2016, we gathered data from different school classrooms in Ontinyent, including 5 Kindergartens Footnote 9 and Primary Schools (4 public schools and 2 private schools with state-funded financial support), 3 Compulsory and Baccalaureate Secondary Schools Footnote 10 (1 public school and 2 private schools with state-funded financial support) and the headquarters of the University of Valencia in Ontinyent (2 classes of the Teaching Diploma). In total, 202 first-year primary school pupils, 204 fifth-year primary school pupils, 135 second-year secondary school students, and 92 university students taking the Teaching Diploma participated.

As such, our sample included a total of 633 students, covering a range of the academic population, from both school and university, in Ontinyent which has a total of 6185 students Footnote 11 . If we take the demographic numerical data in Table 1 Footnote 12 as a reference, it represents a Confidence Interval (CI) of 0.52% which indicates that the academic population in Ontinyent is representative of the academic population in the Community of Valencia. This represents a level of reliability equaling 95% of the academic population, typical of Social Sciences statistical studies (Campo and Martínez, 2017 ). But this does not mean that the study sample is in turn representative of the population in the Community of Valencia.

In order to define the context of academic knowledge, qualitative tools were developed. These tools are unique to research in Social Science Didactics and include a semi-structured interview and questionnaire (Banchs, 2000 ). These tools have been validated by experts in the fields of knowledge associated with this research (Physical Geography, Regional Geographical Analysis, Social Science Didactics and Didactics, and School Organisation) from four universities, three of which are in Spain (Seville, Alicante, and Valencia) and one in Chile (La Serena). Footnote 13

Furthermore, this research draws on previous studies Footnote 14 , using the action-research method which puts the participating students and teachers at the heart of the study (Stenhouse, 1990 ; Elliot, 2000 ), reflecting on their own practice (Teppa, 2012 ). This distinctly includes the model of a research professor in the research (Stenhouse, 1975 ; Sancho and Hernández, 2004 ). In order to improve the curriculum, teachers and other professionals are in the best conditions to carry out this type of research.

The questionnaire is a versatile technique that facilitates the collection of information regarding the objectives of the research. In January and February 2016, teachers and students were asked to participate in the study, obtaining a commitment of wilfulness for this investigation. This is done through specific questions which gather specific quantifiable information for the study (Cohen and Manion, 1990 ), thus allowing for direct comparison between groups. In our case, this is a comparison between the variable of educational stages or the co-variation of students’ ideas in the different educational stages when learning about the climate. Its design focuses on the evaluative considerations of a questionnaire about geography didactics (Alfageme et al., 2010 ) and follows the process itself for the creation of questionnaires: following the research objectives, creating a first draft of the questionnaire for assessment and validation by experts, carrying out a pilot test and delivering the final version of the questionnaire (Del Rincón et al., 1995 ). For the proposed analysis, we used three of the sections which make up the questionnaire: the first section, item 1, covers information sources for students about climate change; the second section, items 2 to 6, looks at the difference between the climate and the weather; the third section, items 7 to 10, tackles the causes of climate change. The questionnaire was created based on content that appears in the textbooks used by participants, containing the same questions/items in order to maintain homogeneity among the 431 participating students, representing Primary Education (10–12 years old; 105 girls and 99 boys), Secondary Education (13–15 years old; 63 girls and 72 boys) and University (82 women and 8 men with 21–23 years old). The design covers a mixed structure of closed and open questions which appear in sections with the corresponding items.

The semi-structured interview , conducted with teachers in schools and universities in Ontinyent, is a substantial part of the research. The teachers were selected according to accessibility and interest in the research. This convenience-based option was chosen due to the possibility of being able to interview them and the relevance to the project framework on the study of the climate and landscape Footnote 15 . Fourteen teachers were interviewed, including two who participated as research professors in the action-research method. The questions were chosen for the study related to their ideas (Saraiva, 2007 ) before participating in the project and covered teacher training, methodology and practice, and their explanations of environmental problems—how they explain environmental changes in Ontinyent to their students. Ultimately, we wanted to find out what the teacher knows and what they do to help their students learn about the climate.

Of the 14 teachers, 8 are women and 6 are men. Three of them are over the age of 56, 2 are between 46 and 55 years old, 6 between 36 and 45, and 3 between 25 and 35 years old. They teach in public (6), private (7), and privately managed public (1) schools. They teach at different educational levels, 1 in Kindergarten, 2 in Primary, 9 in Secondary School, and 2 at Baccalaureate level. They teach different subjects: 2 teach Social Sciences, 4 teach Biology, 2 teach Physics and Chemistry, 1 teaches Mathematics, 1 teaches Language and Literature, 1 teaches Social Integration, 1 teaches Administration and 1 teaches Kindergarten.

Results and data analysis

The data gathered using the questionnaire and interviews are shown, in a quantitative setting, through the already processed conversion into percentages of the participants’ responses per educational stage. The qualitative data has been categorized in line with the desired objectives.

Students’ perception of climate and landscape

In the first section of the questionnaire, related to the hypothesis and objectives of the study, we wanted to know what the students’ favorite source of news on climate change was in order to analyze the trends among students regarding the information they obtain about climate change in the communication society, and the impact on their academic knowledge (Souto, 2011 ). The items in this section questioned the participants about where they get information on climate change, establishing an order of preference. In order to understand what information, they get and the extent to which they receive it from the sources mentioned, we asked a multiple-choice question, the percentages of which established a percentage median of the students’ priorities per educational stage. The data were quantified using a statistical median of the participants’ responses per stage, reflecting the order of importance of the sources they selected in the first step. We differentiated online social networks from the internet, due to their renown and growth. Although the first requires the second, we distinguished that the essential use and function of social networks is communication between people who are active in social relationships, while the internet is a source of information with multiple uses and possibilities. Thereafter, we will detail the number of students who chose each source as their top source and the percentage of the sample. As such, as shown in Fig. 2 , of the 423 students we can see how sources evolve from the family environment (37.7%) in Primary School to the Internet (39.3% in Secondary School and 79.8% at University). We also observe that social networks are used more in Secondary School than at any other educational stage.

The bars represent the percentage in each educational stage.

When analyzing the data, we started with the premise that traditional information sources for learning over the last century such as school, family, friends (social relations), and the media (the press, television) have been expanded by this society of information, communication and technology and the globalization of information and news, because we are now in a network society (Castells, 2006 ). Surveys by official bodies about the information society in Spain and in Europe (Eurostat, 2016 ) show that in 2016 95.2% of students in Spain used the internet, 58.8% used it every day, and 25.7% almost every day for between one and three hours. Among those over the age of 15, around 90% used the internet for e-mail and social networks. The data obtained allowed us to qualify these figures, which are reduced into percentages about more generic sectors. In this way, we established four large categories of information sources that have an impact on knowledge: school, family, the media (Internet, television, and the press), and social relations (friends and networks).

The trend shift towards the media as an information source for students was confirmed. This preference, especially from secondary school onwards, corresponds with the exponential trend for the use of the media by society. However, this suggests a problem and a risk for learning about the climate as it is subject to errors and stereotypes. The liquid modernity we live in comprises the transience, use, and access to a large quantity of data. From the perspective of cognitive psychology and as proven, people find it difficult to retain more than seven units of information. When building our knowledge, quality is more important than quantity. This liquid society produces a series of habits that make it difficult to learn geography (Sebastiá and Tonda, 2017 ). The need for information to learn collides with the sheer quantity of data available which spreads on technological motorways and platforms, motorways of information in the informational technological revolution. The so-called technological revolution hangs over new informative engineering like a cloud and is of great concern for data verification and codes of best practice (Goldenberg and Bengtsson, 2016 ; Wardle et al., 2018 ). Fake news is generated to create states of opinion about climate change (Maslin, 2019 ) and we have observed how these factors have a harmful impact on students’ geographical literacy (Campo, 2019 ). In other words, data shows us that students do not look at social media from a critical perspective.

In addition to understanding the attitudes to climate and environmental knowledge, we wanted to find out what knowledge students had in relation to two main aspects of climate education : the difference between the climate and the weather, and understanding the causes of climate change. We dedicated a part of the questionnaire to these issues.

For the first aspect, we analyzed students’ understanding of the differences between the climate and the weather, identifying whether they knew how to distinguish them. To do this, we provided different statements which they had to match up with climate or weather. This gave us some clues as to their cognitive level (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001 ; Biggs and Tang, 2007 ; Granados, 2017 ) and what the students had learned because the act of matching up indicates subject knowledge and the identification of relationships. The data was obtained through a closed polytomous question in which they could choose which statement referred to the climate, the environment, or unsure. The statements were included in the following items of the questionnaire: item 2, “Last year, the annual average temperature in Ontinyent was 16.2°C” (climate); item 3, “In the summer, the Clariano river is drier than in the winter” (climate); item 4, “The Ontinyent landscape is the Mediterranean” (climate); item 5, “It’s very hot today” (weather); item 6, “Yesterday, the historical center of Ontinyent was flooded” (weather).

As shown in Fig. 3 , the students in each educational stage who correctly matched the concepts with the statements were measured. In addition to the responses from students who answered incorrectly, there were the students who indicated that they did not know.

The colors of the bars represent the student’s answers per item. Right answers are represented by “RIGHT”. Wrong answers are represented by “WRONG”. Not answered questions are represented by “DON’T KNOW”. We have combined the “WRONG” and “DON’T KNOW” answers to represent the degree of confusion regarding each item at each educational stage.

In general, throughout the three stages, more than 25% of students matched the items up incorrectly, making mistakes with all the suggested statements, except for university students who answered item 3 correctly at a rate of 76.2%, item 4 at 92.9%, and item 6 at 77.4%. The high proportion of students who answered item 2 incorrectly stands out, with at least 53.3% answering incorrectly. This percentage corresponds to the secondary school pupils. The average annual temperature was not associated with the climate and the time event “last year” confused them. Primary pupils and university students were further off-the-mark for item 2 with 67.6% and 72.6% respectively, responding incorrectly. As regards the weather, for item 5 at least 36.9% of the students surveyed (this percentage corresponds to university students) did not connect that the weather happens at a certain time while the climate is a succession of weather conditions; for item 5, 53.9% of primary school pupils and 46.7% of secondary school pupils were also incorrect.

We have noted that mistakes about the concepts of climate and weather carry through from primary school to university. If we calculate the average of wrong answers to all items for students from each educational stage, the degree of confusion per participating stage is 55.5% for primary education (113 students out of 204), 41.4% for secondary education (56 students out of 135) and 32.32% for university (27 students out of 84).

Ultimately, students from all educational stages make mistakes or display a lack of knowledge about the climate and weather. This is proven by the incorrect answers to questions about the average temperature and climate (item 2), knowledge of the local climate, characteristics of the climate and its implications for the landscape (items 3 and 4), or identifying the fleeting nature of weather as the climate (item 5) or indeed other phenomena, such as a temporary flood (item 6).

Furthermore, using the questionnaire we wanted to find out if students recognized some of the causes of climate change which were presented in the questions, relating them to gas emissions or the increase in the greenhouse effect. The items were dichotomous: the participants had to select whether the statements were true or false. In line with the taxonomies established by the educational stages, the questions asked aimed to distinguish causes from events, truths from falsehoods, which is interesting given the confusion that surrounds climate change. The statements corresponded with the following items in the questionnaire: item 7, “Thanks to the greenhouse effect, we can live on Earth”; item 8, “Deforestation doesn’t have an impact on climate change, it only has an impact on ground erosion”; item 9, “One of the causes of climate change is the global warming of the Earth”; item 10, “One of the causes that contribute to the process of climate change is the excessive burning of fossil fuels”.

In Table 2 , we note how items 8 and 9 maintain a line of progression of wrong answers in correlation with the age of students and their cognitive level per educational stage. For item 8, 31.9% and 32.9%, and for item 9, 18.6% and 15.6% of primary school and secondary school pupils responded incorrectly. Although they are almost the same, for item 8 around 32% of both groups had difficulties relating deforestation processes with the climate, as indicated by IPCC reports Footnote 16 . The loss of wooded areas produces a rise in carbon emissions, gases which increase the greenhouse effect (IPCC, 2013 ) because they are not absorbed by tree leaves and trunks. In parallel, deforestation leads to land desertification (IPCC, 2019 ) which hinders the processes of afforestation and reforestation. This chain explanation is an example of seeing the world and its problems in a holistic way, working on comprehensive thinking (Morin, 1990 ). This is more difficult to integrate with various fields of knowledge for certain levels and education.

As regards the answers to items 9 and 10, there is visible controversy. For item 9, most students recognize the link between global warming and climate change. But it is concerning that the link is not as clear in the answers to item 10 to which 54% of primary pupils, 33.3% of secondary pupils, and 26.2% of university students answered incorrectly. This data supposes that 41.06% of the surveyed population (see Table 3 ), in other words, 177 of 431 students between the ages of 6 and 24, do not identify the causal relationship between human activities and global warming. They do not associate the increase in burning fossil fuels with climate change (IPCC, 2014 ).

The item which reveals the most mistakes is item 7. Some of the experts consulted when validating this item already indicated that it is a complex question given the origin of the gases because there are those of natural and human origin.

The analysis of the results shows us that there are different levels of confusion among students across all the educational stages to explain the relationships between physical factors (items 7 and 9), humans (items 8 and 10), and climate change. However, there is further confusion regarding the effects of human activities, which lead to deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, on the climate and its evolution.

Teachers’ opinion about climate and landscape explanation

The semi-structured interview allowed us to expand on certain aspects. Once the questions on learning had been asked and the students’ ideas about the climate and landscape gathered, we wanted to define a more precise scale for analysis. In other words, we wanted to see how learning happens in real life in school classrooms. The questionnaire confirmed our hypothesis that there some conceptual problems and corresponding mistakes. The interview allowed us to dig deeper into these assumptions through teachers’ disciplinary and practical training. The design of a personal interview makes it easier to repeat questions to teachers, related with concrete aspects that we had already found proof of thanks to the students’ answers to the questionnaire.

For the study, four categories related to teachers’ ideas were established, allowing us to elaborate coherent explanations for the analysis of students’ education and the vulgar representations of climate change theories. This followed patterns shown by different authors regarding problems in learning and teaching geography, related to students and teachers (Horno, 1937 ; García Pérez, 2011 ; Liceras, 2000 ; Martínez and Olcina, 2019 ).

Teacher training: the academic background of the teachers interviewed is apparent in the basic statistical data we gathered. We asked them when they complete their continuous teacher training, how long it takes, at what time of day, where, and what topics they study. Given the inaccuracy of some responses, we asked them again to specify when they studied, if it was in their free time, in the evening after class, during summer courses, a Cefire course Footnote 17 etc.

Student difficulties regarding the topic of the climate. We tried to understand what the main difficulties are which hinder the effectiveness of the explanations they bring to the subject matter and the problems they encounter when trying to explain topics to their students when teaching about the climate, climate change, and the Ontinyent landscape. To be more precise, we asked them again about knowledge gaps and the procedures and didactic learning difficulties they encounter when explaining these topics.

Teaching methodologies: classroom strategies. We wanted to identify what teachers’ perceptions are regarding how to explain the climate in order to understand their opinion as a teacher on education about the climate and landscape, the relationship between the climate and landscape in the Clariano river landscape in the municipality of Ontinyent, and by which means they explain the problem of climate change to their students in the class. We aimed to understand how they lay out the topic with the textbook in addition to their own explanations using local data or any other means.

which Concepts teachers value and believe necessary to their explanations: climate, weather, climate change, minimum average temperature, night-time irradiation, sunlight, greenhouse effect, albedo effect, cold drop, and landscape. The scale is designed for them to evaluate the concept in line with their use or evaluation of it, with 0 being “nothing” (I don’t use it or deem it useful), 1 “little”, 2 “quite” and 4 “a lot”.

For this article, we will present a summary of the analysis for each category in line with the questions asked and answered by the teachers.

If we analyze the results of the interviews regarding teacher training , most participants, 12 out of 14, revealed that they completed their training outside working hours. Only two teachers answered that certain times were set aside in their work timetable for training purposes. In general, training takes place in the evening or summer, at the cost of their free time. The Cefire courses Footnote 18 were the most common option for continuous training. In the end, their training was reliant on the personal availabilities of teachers who had to bear the responsibility of their training outside school hours and its costs. This infringes the challenges highlighted by different international geography partnerships and the IGU’s Footnote 19 declarations where they recommend geography training as a necessity for primary and secondary school teachers (De Miguel et al., 2016 ; De Miguel, 2017 ). However, it cannot be denied that nowadays, with regard to work and school organization and structure, the school system and political decisions on education result in scarce teacher training to the detriment of teachers’ intentions. It is a pathway that presents too many obstacles for them to be able to commit to potential interests including didactics, innovation, and scientific knowledge about climate change. Rather it relies on the individual will and sense of responsibility of teachers, as reflected in this teacher’s answer Footnote 20 :

“Outside of school hours, through the completion of courses such as Cefire, reading scientific articles published in journals, watching documentaries, TV programs, etc.”

As regards students and the main learning difficulties when it comes to the climate and landscape, teachers understand and outline 25 problems in total which have been categorized into five groups, and the problems which appear in Fig. 4 are broken down into percentages according to the frequency with which they appeared in teachers’ answers, which was in this order: Field of Study (5 problems, 18 references), Student Characteristics (7 problems, 14 references), Didactic Materials (5 problems, 9 references), Teaching Staff (5 problems, 9 references) and School Context (3 problems, 5 references).

The inner ring represents the relative frequency of each difficulty within its group. The outer ring represents the absolute frequency of each difficulty within the whole array of difficulties.

The problems which are identified the most and repeated most frequently are the need to experience the topic outside of the classroom and the theoretical complexity of the content, the spread of data to be used on the topic, the lack of basic education among students, and inter-disciplinary coordination. The rest of the factors highlighted by one or more teachers included the conceptual ideas and errors already held by students, the lack of continuity in the educational stages to tackle curricular topics or the objectives of the school. The teachers’ answers justify the importance of taking them into account when making changes for innovation, the integration of subject matters, and working on projects and problems relevant to the student. Geography is a science explained through other sciences; these ideas, as well as those previously mentioned, were expressed by the teachers interviewed, as summarized by this teacher:

“On the one hand, the content is approached in an isolated way in some subjects and, in my opinion, it should be studied in “all” subject areas. There should be coordination among teachers, as well as continuity between stages and courses, providing a contextualised approach applied to their surroundings. Consequently, their families, the authorities and the rest of the community should participate in their studies. If, furthermore, we don’t get out of the “ordinary classroom” scenario in order to observe, evaluate, analyze, apply knowledge, etc., the student ends up viewing a real problem which affects them directly as an abstract foreign concept, “something we talk about but has nothing to do with me”.

Geography is a science that requires practice, so the main problem mentioned is the need for contact with the environment. It is relevant for the student to study the climate and landscape. The theoretical complexity of the topic combines with the education received by the pupil, the materials used, and the academic context, but how do teachers tackle the subject to give answers and explain the problems of school geography lessons with climate problems and the environmental consequences? (Santiago, 2008 ).

We will now look at how teachers organize and handle their explanations to respond to these difficulties. The methodological aspects outlined in Table 3 demonstrate the 27 aspects the teachers associated with their teaching and the study of the climate. These factors belong to three main groups: materials and resources (13), methodologies (7), and type of activities (7). Most teachers use the textbook (10), documentaries and videos (7), local articles and data (6), illustrations, and the internet (5) for support, as a basis for the information to be studied in the classroom. In addition, but to a lesser extent, they use information about extreme weather events, climograph, or personal experiences related to the climate. The second group relates to the methods used. Environmental experimentation and research appear as the main strategy for learning alongside democratic training, the development of knowledge using previous ideas, cooperative learning, and interactive methods. Finally, the third group encompasses the activities undertaken in tandem with the methodology: brainstorming, understanding of reading materials, presenting projects, debates, and data analysis.

Some methodological aspects about resources, activities, and strategies coincide with those regularly used for teaching and learning about the climate (Romero, 2010 ; Martínez and López, 2016 ; Olcina, 2017 ), such as the textbook, the use of data and graphs, maps and activities for the interpretation and analysis of data. However, although there are aspects which could be included generically, there are no references to specific or innovative aspects for the study of the climate such as thematic maps, satellite images, the creation of monthly rain diagrams, constructing a laboratory, gathering data about the weather on a daily basis (Cruz, 2010 ) or learning based on projects or interdisciplinary projects (Rekalde and García, 2015 ).

The contrast between the difficulties that teachers observe among their students and the teaching they practice indicates that, without specific continuous teacher training, teachers’ thoughts and intentions do not correspond with their practice to a large extent. In other words, teachers are aware of the difficulties, but they cannot utilize methods such as methodological changes and specific resources for the design of activities related to the improvement of climate study at school.

In the end, we are interested in finding out what value teachers attribute to their explanations of independent and necessary concepts to explain climate and climate change. Here we have to highlight, as can be observed in Fig. 5 , the result obtained regarding the frequency of use for its evaluation. Teachers use, with a frequency of over 50%, the concepts of climate change, landscape, the greenhouse effect, climate, and weather compared with, at less than 50%, the minimum average temperature, cold drops, and sunlight. Night-time irradiation and the albedo effect were practically mentioned by one teacher.

The graph bars show how teachers make use of these concepts. The frequency of use of these concepts, represented by colors, shows the percentage of use of each notion by teachers on a scale from 0 (never) to 3 (very frequently).

The results show that teachers identify some concepts as more important to explain climate change in class. Thanks to the analysis carried out with the questionnaire, we were able to demonstrate the confusion experienced by students about the climate and weather, the mistaken identification of the average temperature as a piece of data that explains the climate, or the confusion about the causes of climate change. Teachers attribute relative value to minimum average temperatures, night-time irradiation, the albedo effect of sunlight. Science, on the other hand, explains and draws links between climate change and the increase in night-time temperatures to explain global warming, one of the causes of climate change, as expressed in a report and evaluations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Houghton; Callander and Varney, 1992 ):

“Average warming over parts of the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude continents has been found to be largely characterized by increases in minimum (night-time) rather than maximum (daytime) temperatures.” (p. 7)

“A notable feature over considerable areas of the continental land masses of the Northern Hemisphere is that warming over the last few decades is primarily due to an increase in night-time rather than daytime temperatures.” (p. 21).

The school geography curriculum in Spain prescribes the complexity of curricular content, in line with the cognitive level of the pupil, to be studied during primary and secondary education. Studying with a progression of knowledge is important. During primary education, the curriculum is based on the physical environment, studying the air, then the atmosphere, atmospheric phenomena, weather elements, measurements and recording, the difference between weather and climate, the characteristics of different climates, and explanations for climate change (Martínez and López, 2016 ). During secondary education, they expand on causal and complex thinking, physical and human geography, and ecology from an analytical and later scalar perspective (Romero, 2010 ). Here lies the problem in properly understanding knowledge development processes on the topic of the climate. The teachers we interviewed mentioned this when they identified students’ learning difficulties, identifying their lack of basic training, their idealization of concepts, or the discontinuity in the curricular development of the topic. However, this contrasts with how the teachers evaluated basic concepts used to explain the climate, which is more or less the same as those found in the textbooks, related to the curriculum, rather than those necessary for a comprehensive causal explanation, such as that of climate change. As such, sunlight is only valued by one of the teachers interviewed and used very little. In Ontinyent itself, data over the last 30 years reveals the progressive increase in annual temperatures (Souto, 2018b ), which is not caused so much by sunlight—the same percentage of sunlight hours at certain times of the day is maintained—but rather by night-time irradiation. This concept was only mentioned by two teachers who use it very little.

As we can see, teachers mainly follow the topics in the curriculum as embodied in the textbooks, with the exception of the local reference to the Clariano river. They agree on the importance of this element of the landscape and understanding the significance of its dynamic relationship with the climate. The teachers observe the difficulty students have when studying the climate without leaving the classroom and speak of the need for more commensurate strategies. However, they maintain school traditions and routines, the use of the textbook, and standard curricular content.

Conclusions

The conclusions of the statistical study we carried out confirm the representativeness of the sample, while the analysis of responses verifies the substantiality of the surveyed population in tracking certain stereotypes in the “practical sense” (Domingos and Diniz, 2019 ) and the mechanic reproduction of climate and landscape concepts.

The results endorse the use of “practical sense” ideas Footnote 21 when it comes to everyday explanations regarding the climate, climate change, and its relationship with the landscape. We expected to explain the traditional method of learning about the climate, conditioned by students’ social representations. In this way, we concluded that the mistaken stereotypes and perceptions of a part of the academic population in primary, secondary, and baccalaureate, as well as higher education, are related with the assumption of “common sense”, derived from an everyday practical sense, to which authority is granted when “the facts” are reflected in social communication media.

The study revealed that students’ conceptual and stereotypical errors in the different educational stages vary according to the type (climate, weather, climate change, landscape) and stage (primary, secondary, university). They are persistent and continuous, given that they are repeated and appear anchored in the ideas and knowledge development of students regarding the problems and the study of the climate throughout their education.

We highlight the continuity regarding the manner of reasoning, although representations of abstract thinking are distinguished among secondary school and university students. In these stages, representations of concrete thinking, characteristic of lower cognitive levels and stages, are considered in the school curriculum for the teaching of the climate (Martínez and Olcina, 2019 ).

In the mind maps drawn by students about the climate and learning about the climate, we ascertained that the media and education are the most important factors in the development of knowledge among students. As regards the first, the influence of the internet and digital social communication media grows every day on students as a source of information, whilst other traditional sources of learning and knowledge such as school and family fall behind. As regards teaching, we highlight the role of the teacher in classes: how they teach, the obstacles of the school system, methodology, and the selection of conceptual aspects, procedures, and attitudes which predispose a certain education of the climate, its materialization on the landscape and the evidence of climate change.

Ultimately, the representativeness of the study helps us decipher one of the initial conjectures of this research: “stereotypes and conceptual errors about the climate and landscape are repeated in different statistical demographic cohorts” . This means that the educational system reinforces the ideas derived from common sense and those who transform these stereotypes into alternative arguments as a result of academic education (basic and university) are scarce.

In terms of the students and given the considerable degree of confusion between the weather and climate or about the causes of climate change in the educational stages, we showed how social representations have had an impact on children, teenagers, and young adults developing their knowledge about the climate and landscape, influenced more by the presence of vulgar theories on the topic than by the understanding and application of school concepts.

As regards the teachers, we showed how teachers’ intentions for methodological change collide with difficulties in specific continuous professional development. The obstacles to developing different methodologies, resources, and innovative activities are not overcome by teacher training in order to provide comprehensive explanations about climate change to their students. The increase of the influence of the media on students’ education about climate change facilitates students’ development of knowledge about the climate and environmental changes filled with errors and stereotypes. Some situations cannot be compared or analyzed in a classroom environment, either due to a lack of time dedicated to these topics or due to the obstacles inferred by teaching practice, such as the absence of specific training.

Failing to contest these spontaneous conceptions and academic traditions and routines leads to academic concepts being overshadowed by an incomplete explanation of the climate, resulting in a partial explanation based on vulgar and superficial ideas.

Data availability

The article directly contains the data used to carry out the analysis pertinent to the study. If you are interested in the rest of the data gathered for the research, it can be made available by reasonable written request to the authors.

The Social(S) group is recognized by the University of Valencia as a research group, including teachers from the non-university educational system as collaborators. For more details on the educational background of the group, you can check http://socialsuv.org/educacionsocioambiental/ .

Accordingly, we can highlight the doctoral theses by Diana Santana, “School participation and environmental governance: an educational dialectic” and Diego García, “The social representation of the rural environment: an analysis of school geography”, both presented in 2019, alongside more than ten Master’s theses developed between 2011 and 2019 which tackle the line of research related with Socio-environmental Education.

EcoRiba is a program local to Riba-roja de Túria in Valencia, Spain, which aims to showcase the landscape in order to invigorate the territory. It was presented to society in February 2016 and underpins all the objectives of this sustainable strategy for socio-environmental education.

This is what we call students who have obstacles and hindrances to achieving the objectives and basic skills set out in the school curriculum for a certain age. The book “La invisibilidad de las periferias escolares” [The invisibility of marginalised students] by J. García and X. Souto ( 2020 ) contains a compilation of a research project, thesis, and innovative educational proposals for use in classrooms by teachers who carry out this work with their students.

Group subsidiary dedicated to research and innovation in the education of history and geography at the University of Valencia, Socials group which refers to the understanding of social and environmental problems when teaching and learning about the climate and landscape. https://www.uv.es/uvweb/servicio-investigacion/es/grupos-investigacion/grupo-1285949714098.html?p2=GIUV2015-217 .

The work we referred to pertained to research carried out within the Research in Specific Didactics Doctoral Programme at the University of Valencia, in the line of research of Geography Didactics. Namely, the doctoral thesis entitled “Knowledge of the climate and landscape: from analysis to a teaching proposal”.

The Educational Innovation Project, “teacher training entrenched in the environment from the perspective of school practice” by the Generalitat Valencia with the code UV-SFPIE-GER18-85040, was developed during the three academic years from 2016 to 2019 by teachers in Ontinyent and the Department of Experimental and Social Science Didactics at the University of Valencia. This facilitated relationship-building with teachers, schools, and local bodies which was a guarantee for the sample and data collection.

Data about the Ontinyent population from the year 2016 extracted from the 2019 municipal sheets which can be found on the Generalitat Valencia’s Statistics Portal: http://www.pegv.gva.es/auto/scpd/web/FITXES/Fichas/46184.pdf .

Representations held by Kindergarten pupils were studied, but the explanation thereof is not reflected in the article, because it was a specific study of drawings.

Hereafter, we will use the term Secondary Education to refer to Compulsory Secondary Education.

For this article, pictorial representations were not analyzed.

Census data from the Valencian Statistics Institute (IVE).

The procedure to validate the questionnaire consisted of sending a first model of 84 questions so that the five experts could evaluate it. With the comments and assessment of each item, we have selected the most relevant questions to be able to analyze the students’ learning results; an exchange of views that have been archived, but not published. 10 questions have been selected from these results in this article.

See note 8, an Educational Innovation Project created with the objective of both students and teachers improving the teaching and learning about the climate and local landscape.

See note 4 of this article.

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In the Community of Valencia, the Cefire is responsible for providing state-run courses for the continued professional development of teachers.

See previous note.

IGU is the acronym for the International Geographical Union.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the project: The social representations of school content in the development of teaching skills , R&D Projects on Knowledge Development and Scientific Consolidation and System Technology R + D + i (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities), reference PGC2018-094491-B-C32, and co-financed with EU FEDER funds. This work was supported by the research project “The social representations of educational content in the development of teaching competencies” [PGC2018-094491-B-C32], funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities of Spain and co-funded by the ERDF.

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Campo-Pais, B., Morales-Hernández, A.J., Morote-Seguido, Á. et al. Environmental problems and Geographic education. A case study: Learning about the climate and landscape in Ontinyent (Spain). Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8 , 90 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00761-6

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4 Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8530 Japan

Johannes M. Luetz

5 School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia

6 Christian Heritage College (CHC), Brisbane, Australia

7 School of Law and Society, University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Maroochydore, Australia

Amanda Lange Salvia

8 Graduate Program in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Passo Fundo, Passo Fundo, Brazil

Mark Mifsud

9 University of Malta, Msida, Malta

Felicia Motunrayo Olooto

10 Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension Services, Faculty of Agriculture, Kwara State University, Malete, PMB 1530, Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria

Ilija Djekic

11 Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

Rosley Anholon

12 University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

Izabela Rampasso

13 Universidad Católica del Norte, Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Angamos, 0610, Antofagasta, Chile

14 PNPD/CAPES Program, Doctoral Program in Sustainable Management Systems, Federal Fluminense University, Brazil, Passo da Pátria Street, 156, Niterói, Brazil

Felix Kwabena Donkor

15 Department of Geography Education, University of Education Winneba, Winneba, Ghana

Maria Alzira Pimenta Dinis

16 UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit (FP-ENAS), University Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Praça 9 de Abril 349, 4249-004 Porto, Portugal

Maris Klavins

17 Department of Environmental Science, University of Latvia, Raina blvd 19, Riga, LV 1586 Latvia

Göran Finnveden

18 Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Sciences and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

19 Environmental Sustainability Assessment and Circularity, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Belvaux, Luxembourg

Martin Munashe Chari

20 Risk and Vulnerability Science Centre (RVSC), Faculty of Science and Agriculture, University of Fort Hare, 1 King William’s Town Road, Private Bag X1314, Alice, 5700 Eastern Cape South Africa

Petra Molthan-Hill

21 Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Alexandra Mifsud

22 Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Salil K. Sen

23 Management Development Institute of Singapore, 501 Stirling Rd, Singapore, 148951 Singapore

24 Indian Institute of Management, Jingkieng, Nongthymmai, Shillong, Meghalaya 793014 India

Erandathie Lokupitiya

25 Department of Zoology and Environment Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, Colombo 03, Sri Lanka

Associated Data

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Climate change is a problem which is global in nature, and whose effects go across a wide range of disciplines. It is therefore important that this theme is taken into account as part of universities´ teaching and research programs.

A three-tiered approach was used, consisting of a bibliometric analysis, an online survey and a set of case studies, which allow a profile to be built, as to how a sample of universities from 45 countries handle climate change as part of their teaching programs.

This paper reports on a study which aimed at identifying the extent to which matters related to climate change are addressed within the teaching and research practices at universities, with a focus on the training needs of teaching staff. It consists of a bibliometric analysis, combined with an online worldwide survey aimed at ascertaining the degree of involvement from universities in reducing their own carbon footprint, and the ways they offer training provisions on the topic. This is complemented by a set of 12 case studies from universities round the world, illustrating current trends on how universities handle climate change. Apart from reporting on the outcomes of the study, the paper highlights what some universities are doing to handle climate issues, and discusses the implications of the research.

Conclusions

The paper lists some items via which universities may better educate and train their students on how to handle the many challenges posed by climate change.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12302-021-00552-5.

Introduction

Climate change and education.

Universities globally are increasingly recognizing their responsibility to prepare students and society to actively contribute to the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. This role sees universities adopting and promoting carbon neutral goals and practices [ 13 , 24 , 57 ]. Situated within this broader context, contemporary higher education (HE) providers progressively pursue a dual strategy [ 4 ]. First, universities are aiming to become “carbon neutral” institutions by adopting low-carbon operational practices. Second, universities are developing curricula and pedagogical approaches to educate students (and by extension society) about the imperatives of carbon neutrality and climate change mitigation and adaptation. In the literature this dual education has been conceptualized as a critical twin strategy that sees universities concurrently reduce their own “carbon footprint” (by aiming for net-zero emissions of institution-linked greenhouse gasses) and expanding the societal “carbon brainprint” (by teaching knowledge and skills in the area of carbon neutral practices) [ 4 , 11 , 24 ] (Fig.  1 ). As such, HE providers have a vital role to play in educating future environmental auditors, community organizers, corporate managers, engineers, practitioners, technical professionals, policymakers and, most significantly, the community about actions that can be taken to mitigate and adapt to climate change, while concurrently propagating social and governance measures. Over time the cumulative build-up of societal awareness progressively permeates and influences the practices of the corporate sector, community stakeholders and local and national governments on how to better manage climate change mitigation and adaptation in their diverse spheres of influence, including through advocacy, daily behaviors and professional careers [ 13 , 21 , 57 ].

Schematic concept of holistic climate change education at universities comprising research, low-carbon operational practices, forms of educative collaboration with society, and curricula and pedagogy. Figure by authors, based on Chatterton et al. [ 11 ] and Baumber et al. [ 4 ]

While universities are thus recognizing their responsibility to progressively prioritize carbon neutrality and develop climate change modules in educational content, efforts can sometimes be stymied by organizational inertia, operational complexity and a plethora of regulatory requirements that impinge on governance in the higher education sector [ 39 , 57 ].

Climate change education (CCE) at universities may take the form of both formal, informal, and non-formal learning and teaching approaches, including nature-immersive field projects, international case studies and higher degree research (HDR), among others [ 39 , 40 , 69 ]. Literary analysis of university education on climate change and sustainability has reflected a gradual shift globally over the past decade away from a narrow preoccupation in curricula on environmental protection toward broader objectives and creative educational approaches. These initiatives include corporate social responsibility (CSR), multiculturality and ethics. They also manifest as renewable energy, recyclable resources, campus greening, embodied pedagogies, and nature-immersive outdoor education, among others [ 8 , 35 , 47 , 70 ]. Molthan-Hill et al. [ 40 ] offer extensive guidance on how to integrate CCE across a wide range of subjects in university curricula, particularly ones with a less direct link to climate science; this guidance is offered from the point of view of content, pedagogy and contextual institutional and sector-wide constraints.

The way forward for universities is to dynamically reposition. This would measurably bridge the gap between generating direct action in the area of carbon neutral education and the creation and dissemination of critical knowledge about climate change that has the potential to proliferate across multiple other sectors [ 11 , 13 ]. Corollary benefits for universities would be evident with significant influence on community leadership. Financial investments would apportion and support economic, environmental and societal value creation. Over recent years engagement in this space has marked an area of growing attention for higher education providers. Instances of universities taking the onus of investing in environmentally sustainable projects to attain sustainability objectives have escalated. Recent trends have additionally seen a growing number of universities globally take decisions to actively divest their endowments from fossil fuel holdings [ 4 , 6 ]. Further, the pathway for climate driven education is integrative, strategic, and progressively embeds the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [ 18 , 60 ].

The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings is a tool used to describe the metrics used by universities in implementing individual UN SDGs [ 51 ]. Among them, SDG 13—climate action—is used. This measures whether universities perform research on climate change, how they use low-carbon energy, and if they have education programs aimed at the achievement of carbon neutrality. The latest list (for 2020) covers 376 universities from 70 countries. The top five universities are in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. These universities are the ones targeted in the current study.

Climate change and universities

The nexus of climate change education.

Climate change and climate variability are principal issues confronting the global community [ 16 ]. The intricate nature of the global climate as an interconnected system, comprising earth and socio-ecological systems, necessitates critical enquiries coupled with reflexive and transformative educational methods [ 68 ]. This may help to address the need for more radical social learning-centered transformation in relation to sustainability concerns and the challenges posed to learning and pedagogy [ 18 ]. There is hence a need to shift from simple content-based, silo approaches of pedagogy to a more systemic and ‘deeper’ enquiry that draws together biophysical, socio-economic and socio-psychological understandings [ 23 , 34 ]. In this light, concepts such as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), as an integral component of quality education and critical tool for sustainable development has gained global currency [ 62 ]. ESD empowers people to change their thinking and approaches towards a sustainable future. This can be facilitated by enhancing opportunities for quality education on sustainable development [ 15 ]. This will promote social transformation through the redesigning of educational pedagogies and empowering people to build knowledge, skills, values and behaviors critical for sustainable development. This also underscores the need to integrate sustainable development themes, such as climate change within teaching and learning (UNESCO 2020). Efforts are needed from universities around the world to develop advanced curriculum, programs, capacity building and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to support a deeper learning on climate change [ 12 , 48 ].

The SDG final Decade of Action in delivering the global goals

United Nations (UN) studies show that although some progress has been made in a number of the SDGs, there is still substantial work to be done in achieving the SDGs, particularly in the area of redressing social inequity [ 14 , 36 ]. The year 2020 marked the inception point of the Decade of Action to achieve the SDGS by 2030 [ 60 ]. The Decade is a rallying cry for the entire global community to catalyze actions in addressing urgent global challenges—from poverty and gender to climate change, and inequalities. The UN has encouraged all sectors of the society to rally their resources towards the Decade of Action in three core dimensions: global action to achieve effective leadership, improved resources and smarter solutions for realizing the SDGs [ 60 ]. In this regard, education and training will play a critical role. This is more so as climate-induced extreme events have been on the ascendancy across the globe, and argued to be reversing critical developmental gains [ 54 ]. It is important that all the advances and successes concerning the HE for sustainable development are safeguarded as much as possible [ 33 ]. The success of related measures is partly dependent on an informed and proactive citizenry cooperating with other core stakeholders. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are vital stakeholders who function along critical levers in the dynamics of sustainable development [ 53 ]. Furthermore, HEIs represent entrepreneurial spaces where social stakeholders collaborate in knowledge co-production to tackle pressing social issues. This article explores some of the ways higher education institutions can show leadership in climate education and research practices, as well as the inherent opportunities that can be upscaled in a post-COVID era for sustainability.

Methodology

The paper aims to identify how matters related to climate change are tackled at universities both in teaching and research, with a focus on the training needs of teaching staff. It is developed in three directions: a bibliometric analysis, an online worldwide survey aimed at ascertaining the degree of involvement from universities to offer training provisions on the topic and a set of 12 case studies from universities round the world, illustrating current trends on how they handle climate change in teaching and research. These methods are mutually complementary for 3 main reasons: they provide an overview of the recent and current literature and their focus (bibliometric analysis); they enable the identification of trends among academic staff (the survey), and they cater for the provisions of real life examples illustrating how climate change is being implemented in university activities (case studies). Table ​ Table1 1 summarizes the purposes of each method and their contribution to this study.

Methods used in the analysis

Bibliometric methods are increasingly used to understand structure and trends of scientific publications. The term co-occurrence analysis is a specific bibliometric analysis method that allows understanding overall structure and thematic focus of scientific fields. Several software tools have been developed over the past few years that can be used for detailed co-occurrence analysis of terms mentioned in publications that are indexed in scientific databases. In this study the VOSviewer has been used, a frequently utilized software tool for bibliometric analyses [ 67 ]. The input data for analysis were bibliometric information of peer-reviewed publications that are indexed in the Web of Science (WoS). WoS was selected for its broad coverage of high-quality scientific publications. It also provides detailed bibliographic information necessary for analysis using the VOSviewer. To collect relevant information from the WoS, a broad-based search string was developed that includes terms related to climate change, universities, and education/training: TS  =  ((“climat* change”) and (“education” or “training” or “curricula” or “curriculum”) AND (“universit*” OR “higher education institut*”)).

The initial search was done on February 26, 2020 and returned 454 articles. After screening these articles to determine their relevance to the aims and objectives of the study, 414 articles remained in the database. In line with the study objectives, the criterion for inclusion in the analysis was addressing issues related to the integration of climate change in the teaching and research practices at universities. The bibliographic data of these articles were downloaded and used for term co-occurrence analysis using VOSviewer. Since multiple variants of a specific term may exist in the articles, a thesaurus file was created to merge synonyms. The output of the term co-occurrence analysis is a network of nodes and links (see Fig.  2 ), where the size of nodes and links indicates the frequency of occurrence and the strength of connections between nodes, respectively. Terms closely linked to each other form clusters that are shown in unique colors in Fig.  2 . These clusters are specific thematic areas that will be discussed in the results section.

Output of the term co-occurrence analysis

The methodology of the survey

In order to establish the degree of involvement from universities in reducing their own carbon footprint and to fill in the research gap on how universities around the world handle climate change as part of their teaching programs, a questionnaire survey was undertaken. The questionnaire was part of an international study undertaken by the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR) https://esssr.eu/ and the Inter University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) https://www.hawhamburg.de/ftz-nk/programme/iusdrp.html , aimed at identifying knowledge gaps on CCE at universities.

The first list of items was reviewed by the authors to minimize redundancies and similar items and to ensure that all important questions were added. The questionnaire survey was pre-tested by a panel of academics within sustainability areas at different universities.

The main target group of the questionnaire was the university staff involved in teaching and/or research at the university, who already integrated climate change-related aspects in a course at the university. The target individuals were identified through a number of mailing lists, including the European School of Sustainability Science and Research mailing list ( https://esssr.eu/ ), JiscMail ( https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ ) and the Inter-University Program for Sustainable Development Research (IUSDRP) list. The estimated response time was 10 min and no incentives were offered for questionnaire completion. At the end, 129 participants from 45 countries participated in the survey. The questionnaire was composed of 22 items, mainly closed-ended questions, divided into 3 major sections (Additional file 1 : Appendix S1). The questions were formulated based on the authors’ knowledge and experience in terms of CCE, but also considering the results and training needs identified in other studies, targeting a single university or global studies (e.g., [ 26 , 30 , 43 , 48 , 61 ]). The first section aimed to gather information regarding the background of the participants: gender, age, university and the role at the university, the scientific domain and if the respondent is teaching or not climate change issues at the university. The second section of the survey, being devoted to the staff members in a university who integrated climate change-related aspects in a course, aimed to gather information on the perceived level of training of the teacher: climate change topics of the course, for which the teacher needs more training, the level of expertise to teach the course, how this was obtained and which sources of information are used to develop the content of the course. The item 14 of the questionnaire was composed of 13 statements assessing the perceived level of efficiency of the most important means to promote CCE. The assessment was made using a Likert-type scale (1—strongly disagree, 2—disagree, 3—no opinion, 4—agree, 5—strongly agree). Statistical processing was performed employing a two-stage cluster analysis to classify attitudes of respondents towards these statements. In this respect, a solution with two clusters was chosen using country/continent from where the respondents/university come from, their gender, age, staff role at the university and frequency of sciences as categorical variables. The difference between the two clusters was determined using the Mann–Whitney U test ( p  < 0.05).

The third section investigated the challenges and drivers of implementing climate change-related initiatives at the university level, aiming to assess the drivers and their potential. Two open-ended questions gave the possibility to the respondent to further emphasize through deeper understanding how the university could address the training needs on CCE. The validity of the data is further assured as it derived from bona fide academic institutions and supplied by well-informed sources. The reliability of data is also assured, since those who replied are very familiar with the concept of sustainability and have an understanding of the emphasis to this topic in their own institutions.

Case-studies selection

In order to reveal how climate change is implemented by universities, mainly through teaching and research, a literature review has been performed. In parallel with covering climate change in bachelors/masters/PhD curriculum, they cover this topic through the following approaches: (i) by delivering different training events; (ii) by means of various public initiatives including workshops and conferences; (iii) by conducting specific research activities.

The selection of 12 universities as case studies was based on two criteria—ranking and geographic location. Criteria #1 was based on Academic Ranking of World Universities 2020 ( http://www.shanghairanking.com/index.html ), three universities from top 100, four universities from ranked between 101 and 1000; five universities out of list. Criteria #2 was based on the geographic location of universities: five from Europe; three from North America; four from other parts of the world.

Results and discussion

A. the results of bibliometric analysis.

Results of the term co-occurrence analysis using VOSviewer allow us to identify what issues related to CCE have received more attention in the literature. These results (Fig.  2 ) show that, in addition to the search terms (i.e., climate change, education, universities, HE, and curriculum), terms such as adaptation, perceptions, science, management, policy, and several terms related to mitigation have received more attention. In other words, these terms have occurred more frequently in the reviewed literature, indicating that issues related to them have been more studied. Better understanding can be achieved by looking into the five major thematic clusters identified by the analysis that are shown in different colors in Fig.  2 . These clusters show the major thematic focus of the existing literature and are, in descending order of importance, focused on climate change adaptation, sustainability and climate change mitigation, institutional aspects, challenges and barriers, and curriculum reform.

In the largest cluster (in red) terms related to climate change adaptation are dominant. This indicates the recognition of the significance of integrating knowledge about climate change adaptation in university education. In fact, communicating the potential risks posed by climate change is critical and has been well recognized in the literature [ 42 ]. It is believed that risk communication, overcoming misconceptions, and enhancing knowledge regarding adaptation strategies can contribute to better response to climatic threats in the long run [ 3 , 42 ].

The second largest cluster (in green) is dominated by terms related to sustainability and climate change mitigation. It is increasingly recognized that CCE should be an integral part of efforts aimed at ESD [ 2 , 38 , 45 ]. Considering the central position of mitigation in climate change efforts and policies, and since the energy and water sectors are major contributors to climate change, there has been increasing attention to issues related to their efficient management [ 28 ]. The emphasis on the climate–energy nexus has highlighted the need for responsible consumption, and extension of efficient energy systems based on renewable energy technologies [ 28 ]. It is demonstrated that enhancing mitigation knowledge through CCE programs can make significant contributions to reducing lifetime emissions of individuals [ 13 ]. This cluster also includes the term “water resources” that, considering the water–energy nexus, may indicate the importance of appropriate and efficient water resource management for achieving climate change mitigation targets [ 49 ]. Water resource management is also essential for climate change adaptation.

Results also highlight the significance of CCE for better community engagement and for facilitating institutional transformations (blue cluster). Also, in some cases, institutional reform could be necessary for mainstreaming CCE in university programs. CCE is likely to increase community engagement in mitigation and adaptation efforts and promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors [ 7 , 42 ]. Mainstreaming CCE may, however, be challenging as some institutions may resist change [ 7 ]. This highlights the need for institutional transition to facilitate integration of CCE into university programs [ 32 ]. Such institutional reforms and transitions can also facilitate CCE by developing strategic education programs and providing training programs to enhance competency of teaching staff [ 1 , 29 ]. Institutional support in terms of, among other things, reforming regulations and fulfilling meeting requirements is also critical for addressing other challenges that may make it difficult to mainstream CCE into universities ‘education agenda.

The purple cluster in Fig.  2 highlights some of these barriers. One major challenge is that, traditionally, there has been a tendency towards disciplinary and silo-based education in universities. This is not conducive to CCE that requires inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches and collaboration between different fields and with various stakeholders [ 20 , 29 ]. In this regard, institutional support through development of platforms for engagement and collaboration of stakeholders from different fields and/or offering incentives for participating in collaborative and interdisciplinary programs can be effective [ 1 , 5 , 29 , 46 ]. In addition, as in the case of education for sustainable development (ESD), lack of experiences could be a reason for limited integration of CCE [ 46 ]. Accordingly, developing platforms for sharing successful experiences is necessary.

Finally, the presence of terms such as curriculum and students in the last cluster (yellow) is also noteworthy. Curriculum reform is essential since it may not be easy to integrate topics related to climate change into curricula that are traditionally developed along disciplinary lines [ 20 ]. Successful reform of curricula may, however, be challenging as not all students/teachers may favor it [ 25 ]. Therefore, overcoming such challenges is also essential.

b. Results of the survey

A total of 45 developed and developing countries represent the sample of the survey: Australia (3.9%), Bangladesh (2.4%), Brazil (0.8%), Bulgaria (0.8%), Cameroon (0.8%), Canada (1.6%), China (1.6%), Côte d'Ivoire (0.8%), Cyprus (0.8%), Denmark (0.8%), Ethiopia (4.7%), Fiji (0.8%), Finland (0.8%), France (3.1%), Gambia (0.8%), Germany (2.4%), Ghana (4.7%), Guatemala (0.8%), India (4.7%), Iraq (0.8%), Ireland (1.6%), Italy (0.8%), Kenya (1.6%), Malta (0.8%), Mexico (0.8%), Mozambique (0.8%), Niger (0.8%), Nigeria (6.3%), Norway (1.6%), Pakistan (0.8%), Philippines (3.1%), Poland (0.8%), Portugal (3.9%), South Africa (2.4%), Spain (3.1%), Sri Lanka (1.6%), Switzerland (1.6%), Tanzania (0.8%), Thailand (1.6%), Tunisia (0.8%), Uganda (1.6%), United Kingdom (8.7%), United States (15.0%), Uruguay (0.8%), Vietnam (0.8%). Figure  3 presents the worldwide distribution of responses.

Participating countries in the survey

Table ​ Table2 2 presents the sample characteristics. Most participants were male (63.6%), and the dominant knowledge areas were Social Sciences (31.8%) and Environmental and Earth Sciences (28.7%). Almost all age groups had rather balanced participation (between 20 and 27%), except for the youngest group (21 to 30 years old), which had the lowest participation. In terms of role, the permanent positions mainly involved in postgraduate and undergraduate teaching and research were the main ones indicated by the sample (40.3% and 24.8%, respectively). Regarding the university profile and institutional involvement in external climate change projects, research was the most important type of involvement observed (76.7%). Lower levels of responses were provided for community-related programs (45.0%) and teaching/training programs (36.4%). Other types of involvement mentioned were consultancy projects and events open to the public. No involvement was reported by 12.4% of the respondents, and even when the engagement was reported, they generally tend to occur to a moderate extent (41.9%) ( M  = 2.9520, SD = 0.99).

Sample characteristics

a Other include: Agricultural Economics; Agroforestry and Forestry; Architecture and Urban Studies; Climate and Society; Climate Variability and Change; Coping/Adaptation Strategies, Modeling; Consulting; Education; Education for Sustainable Development; Energy science; Entrepreneurship Education; Environmental and Resource Economics; Environmental Economics; Environmental Health Science; Environmental Law; Environmental Sociology; Environmental studies (not science; studies in interdisciplinary); Student's Union; Sustainable Development and Business; Urban Planning

When asked if they teach climate change-related aspects in a course at the university, 77.5% responded positively (Additional file 2 : Appendix S2 presents the list of courses taught as indicated by the sample). On the other hand, only 58.1% of the respondents indicated that climate change-related aspects are included in the course guidelines. The others either do not teach the topic (16.3%) or include these aspects in the teaching, even though not having the course guidelines (24.8%).

Table ​ Table3 3 presents a comparison between aspects of climate change mostly addressed by the courses taught by the sample and their training needs. The same list of aspects was presented and assessed in two different questions. As expected, the aspects of climate change mitigation and adaptation, and social and environmental impacts were addressed mainly by the courses, while the lowest rates were observed for ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) reporting, climate diplomacy and climate leadership. In terms of more training needed by the educators, around one third of the sample indicated topics as projections of future climate change, the economics of climate change and climate governance. The least indicated topics include climate change mitigation and SDG 13.

Table 3

Comparison between aspects of climate change mostly addressed by the courses taught by the sample and their training needs

Other aspects listed by the sample in the additional open option as already being included in teaching cover a wide range of perspectives and topics: carbon trading, carbon footprinting, greenhouse gas inventorying, climate change impacts, climate and gender, climate change communication, climate finance, climate justice, leadership in sustainability, among others. In terms of the areas where the respondents need further training, the listed topics include: communication strategy, health impacts, history of climate change, how to educate in response to climate change, justice and equity impacts of climate change, keep on track with various information bases, public engagement, countering climate change denialism.

Figure  4 presents the responses for two of the survey questions: “Do you feel prepared to teach climate change-related concepts?” and “Have you received or pursued training on matters related to climate change?”. More than half of the participants indicated that they feel prepared to teach the topic to a great or very great extent. Similarly, around 53% of the respondents said they already received or pursued training on climate change.

Sample perceived preparation to teach climate change-related concepts ( left ) and received/pursued training on climate change ( right ) (in percentage of responses)

The questionnaire also focused on the primary sources the academic staff rely on to develop the content of courses. Scientific articles were the most indicated option (85.5%), followed by Internet-based resources (69.8%), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment reports (68.2%), own research (62.0%) and reports elaborated by other global organizations (58.1%). Printed books were also in the list (39.5%). Almost 10% of the respondents used the additional option to include other sources, such as national assessments of climate change projections and impacts, findings from other project research, the course textbook, workshops, conferences, and webinars.

Table ​ Table4 4 points out the efficiency of the means to promote CCE as stated by the respondents. The highest mean is observed for problem-based learning, followed by experiential learning and fieldwork. Online courses received the lowest mean, indicating probably the need for more developments in this area to support efficiency towards teaching and learning. In courses on climate change, the sample supported the need for placing specific emphasis on problem-based learning (48.1%), behavior change (37.2%), nature-based learning (36.4%), experiential learning (36.4%), cognitive learning (30.2%), and Socio-emotional aspects (30.2%).

Perceived efficiency of the most important means to promote CCE (1—not efficient, 2—somewhat efficient, 3—efficient, 4—very efficient, 5—extremely efficient) ( N  = number,  M  = mean, SD  = standard deviation)

When focusing on climate change and several aspects in the training process involving the universities, the academic staff generally showed a high level of agreement with the presented statements (Table ​ (Table5). 5 ). Based on the Likert scale used (from 1 'strongly disagree' to 5 'strongly agree’), respondents in both identified clusters agree that universities should offer space for climate change education, that climate change is a real concern for the country and that there is a growing demand for experts and professionals in climate change (Table ​ (Table5, 5 , scores above 4). On the other side, respondents have a neutral opinion with the statements referring that the university has properly embedded climate change into teaching and learning activities and offers nature-based/nature-immersive courses to cultivate care for the environment (Table ​ (Table5, 5 , scores around 3). Finally, the sample of respondents does not agree whether there is lot of skepticism related to climate change among students, as this topic had the lowest agreement mean (Table ​ (Table5, 5 , scores below 3).

Description of the two clusters in terms of country/continent, gender, age, staff role and knowledge area ( N  = 129)

The mean ± standard deviations (M ± SD) values 1 were obtained from the raw data. Note: Items denoted with different letters are significantly different at the level of 5%

Likert scale: (1) “Strongly disagree”, (2) “Disagree”, (3) “No opinion”, (4) “Agree”, (5) “Strongly agree”

The cluster analysis revealed two clusters, based on the scores presented in Table ​ Table5, 5 , that can be identified as “climate active universities” and “less climate active universities”. The first cluster mainly consists of respondents/universities from Asia, Africa, Americas and Australia and some western and Northern European countries, of higher ages (above 50 years of age), mainly engaged in teaching and research. Opposed to them, the demographic structure of “less climate active universities” are mainly from Europe (mainly from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe) and some institutions in Africa, with an age below 50 and respondents that are engaged either only as teachers or only as researchers. Out of 13 statements, for nine there are statistically significant differences between the clusters ( p  < 0.05, denoted with different letters in Table ​ Table5 5 ).

While the respondents in both clusters scored almost equally for the first two statements (climate change is a real concern for the country and that the university should offer space for CC, p  > 0.05), the first group of “climate active universities” showed a higher agreement (scores around 4) with the statements referring to the awareness in terms of climate-related initiatives (research units, programs) undertaken by the university, but also with the statements that there is a growing demand for experts and professionals in climate change, thus climate change is likely to increase in the future and to the fact that students are keen to receive training on CC. For the same statements, there is a low agreement (scores around 2) for the group named “less climate active universities”. Both clusters express the same level of disagreement associated with skepticism related to climate change among students ( p  > 0.05) and the same level of agreement that climate change literacy enables better career pathways ( p  > 0.05).

As far as challenges and drivers to implementing CCE are concerned, Fig.  5 summarizes the sample views. Lack of funding for climate-related research was the most indicated challenge (by roughly 63% of the sample—of this number, two-thirds from developing countries). Lack of staff expertise had also a high response (over 50%), supporting the need for further climate change training. On the other hand, lack of students’ interest does not seem to be a considerable challenge (15.5%). Other challenges mentioned by the sample (11%) in the open space consist of lack of internal resources for scientific development, lack of leadership from highest campus officials, lack of progression between climate-related courses, lack of diversity in faculty expertise, lack of targeted on-job short to medium term trainings on climate change and related issues, lack of internship opportunities for students to develop their practical skills on climate change solutions, lack of will to pursue CCE against all odds, and religious or political perspectives.

Challenges ( above ) and Drivers ( below ) to implementing CCE at the respondents ‘ universities (in percentage of responses)

As for drivers, additional resources dedicated to CCE (selected by 71.3% of the sample) were perceived as fundamental for improvements in this area, followed by national guidelines to address climate change in the curricula (63.6%) and the increased attractiveness to students (62.8%). Pressure from stakeholders and/or local communities does not seem to be an essential driver, as it was indicated by around half of the respondents. Other drivers were indicated by less than 7% of the respondents, and include being relevant in global discourse on climate issues, competition among universities in terms of courses offered to their graduates, increased job opportunities directly arising from climate change concerns in businesses and communities, organized faculty support, personal motivation, potential national and international collaborations with research institutions and academic institutes, as well as any non-governmental organizations, and the existence of local (e.g., state) guidelines to address climate change in the curricula.

The last survey questions referred to the perceived potential for CCE in the following years and how it could be addressed. In general, the sample saw potential on the topic ( M  = 3.8281; SD = 0.89715), with over 90% of the respondents spread around the positive response options (26.4% to a moderate extent, 43.4% to a great extent, and 23.3% to a very great extent). A total of 93 respondents (out of 129) used the open space (response was not mandatory) to describe how training needs on CCE can be addressed at the university level.

By coding the responses against the major themes, several aspects were identified as having the highest frequency (proportionally represented in Fig.  6 ), being the significant needs in terms of climate change at universities. The main one identified by the respondents is related to the courses, either by introducing climate change aspects in the existing courses, or designing new interdisciplinary courses. Even the importance of online courses was raised in this respect. Another main need was the curriculum in terms of introducing a flexible and interdisciplinary curriculum, embedding deeply the climate change aspects and allocating more time for them, following by the need to increase staff training and capacity. With a lower frequency, research in terms of funding projects related to climate change was mentioned by the respondents, but also the need to enhance the partnership, collaboration and exchange between the universities, to design specialized university programs, and to organize various events as workshops, seminars and conferences. Some respondents also mentioned community outreach activities, the involvement of students and creating special departments on climate change as being relevant actions to address the climate change needs at universities.

The major themes for training needs in terms of CCE at universities identified by the participants in the survey

These identified needs are also the main instruments used by the 12 selected universities analyzed in the paper to develop climate change actions. The results of the survey are also in line with the challenges to CCE identified in the literature review part of the paper: the strong need identified in the previous publication for institutional support to integrate CCE into the university programs [ 32 ], but also the curriculum reform to overcome the disciplinary perspective by introducing interdisciplinary courses [ 20 ]. This emphazizes the role of the institutional support to CCE by developing specialized training programs and reforming the curricula, raising the competencies of teaching staff being another theme identified in the literature [ 1 , 29 ]. This is in line with the strong need perceived by the respondents of the survey regarding staff training and increasing the capacity of staff to teach the climate change aspects along various courses.

c. Case-studies analysis

Table ​ Table6 6 summarizes the approach used by 12 universities around the world in terms of developing climate-related actions. It is obvious that development of at least one curriculum at one of the three levels of studies is mostly the first step. Also, universities within their different research projects and activities produce graduate theses (mostly PhDs) that have climate change in focus. As a result of these research activities, universities also organize conferences/workshops and have a growing publication record dedicated to climate change.

Examples of means used by 12 universities around the world in terms of developing climate-related actions

In parallel with teaching and research activities, some universities observe climate change from a wider perspective, providing voluntary training for their staff and students, life-learning and other types of courses to the public, or organizing public activities raising awareness to climate change challenges. In this context, the cases presented in this section have been grouped based on how the selected universities have been addressing the needs for increased and advanced climate change education, as identified in the previous methodological step: (i) accredited teaching programs of all levels of studies and research activities; (ii) various training events focused on staff and/or students; (iii) public initiatives; and (iv) other climate change-related activities.

Accredited teaching programs of all levels of studies and research activities

One of the goals at KTH Royal Institute of Technology [ 31 ] is that all educational programs at all levels should integrated climate action in their curricula so that students after graduation can contribute to achievement of a climate neutral society. The university has an active collaboration with the KTH Student Union and student associations to support them in their work to monitor issues that concern sustainability and climate, among others, within education. Staff in leading teaching roles, such as the Director of First and Second Cycle Education, the Director of Third Cycle Education, program coordinators and individuals on the education committee and the equivalent should undergo training in how sustainable development (including climate issues) can be integrated in educational programs. Currently, in the first, second and third cycle, there are educational programs that have a focus on sustainable development and climate transformation.

At the University of Campinas, there are courses in undergraduate and graduate programs focusing on climate change issues (Geographic Climatology; Climate changes; Global Ecology and Climate Change). Among the topics addressed in these courses, it can be mentioned: effects of climate change on plants, analysis of climate changes, and to analyze at global scale the planet’s system, predicting and understanding environmental changes [ 63 ]. At the University, there are 100 documents presented in the online academic repository focusing on climate change. From them, 11 are PhD thesis and 35 are master dissertation [ 63 ]. Besides, the university has the Center for Meteorological and Climate Research Applied to Agriculture (CEPAGRI). Founded in 1983, the Center performs research on agroclimatology, agrometeorology, ecophysiology, and geotechnologies and provide several information about these themes for population. Studies on climate change are an important focus of CEPAGRI [ 9 ].

In the University of British Columbia (Canada) repository, 85 thesis and dissertations are focused on climate change issues, with 36 PhD thesis and 49 master dissertations. Among these documents, the oldest one was published in 1994: a master dissertation about sea level rising. In 2021, the two PhD thesis published (until April, 2021) were related to the impact of climate change on fish stock/supply [ 56 ].

Starting from 2012, the University of Latvia [ 65 ] has been engaged on climate change and sustainable development which has been advanced since 2014 by the development of a study course "Climate change and sustainable development" offered as elective with over 500 students having these lectures. Since 2018 another course is delivered, entitled "Management of Climate Change". At this institution, over 20 BSC, 8 MSc and one PhD theses have analyzed climate change. Impact of such an initiative has been observed by inviting academics to participate in drafting "Climate Law" (in progress) and National climate policy. In 2021, an international conference on Climate change in teacher education is planned.

Climate change is being addressed at the University Fernando Pessoa [ 59 ] within its PhD program in Earth Sciences, comprising the research branches, Oil Systems and Energy Problems, and Geo-risks, Gas Emissions and Geological Sequestration of CO2, through a specialized Isotherm Laboratory (measuring the capacity of coal as non-conventional reservoir to safety store CO2) to study CO2 sequestration in coal, aiming to contribute to Climate Change minimization. In 2008, a Workshop on “Energy, Greenhouse Gases and Environment” was held in Porto. Actions are being developed since the PhD program in Earth Sciences was officially implemented, in 2009. Until now, four PhD theses associated with climate change have been defended, and 12 peer-reviewed publications.

Similar can be seen at University of Colombo [ 64 ] with climate change courses for students at various levels of studies (Climate Change, Adapting businesses for climate change) and a postgraduate program on 'Climate Change and Environmental Management'. This University was the hosting partner of the International Climate Change Conference 2017 and 2018. Over 500 students have been included in various climate change lectures, with 1 PhD and 13 MSc/BSc (Honors) theses defended, and 12 articles related to climate change published in peer-reviewed journals within the last 5 years.

Within the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee [ 27 ], specific research has targeted climate vulnerability based on land use, soil and climate, temperature and rainfall with urban civic labs incorporating relevant SDGs. Outcome comprises over 20 theses from different levels of studies covering climate change with several publications.

Within its curriculum, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences covers climate change as a topic included in Bachelors and Masters degree programs [ 22 ]. Within the scientific community, research group at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences is editing the world's leading peer-reviewed book series on climate change (the 'Climate Change Management' series) published by Springer which has produced various volumes such as 'Water, Energy and Food Nexus in the Context of Strategies for Climate Change Mitigation', 'Climate Change and the Role of Education or Climate Change, Hazards and Adaptation Options', among others.

Various training events focused on staff and/or students

Hamburg University of Applied Sciences is an example of successful delivering training on climate change for over 3.000 academic staff [ 17 ]. It was organized by the research group “Research and Technology Transfer Sustainability and Climate Change Management” which launched in 2021 a new research on UN SDG13 “The Climate Change and SDG 13 Academic Research and Publications Initiative” [ 22 ].

Ranked in the first position of the [ 51 ] Ranking regarding universities activities related to climate action (SDG 13) [ 52 ], the University of British Columbia (Canada) established a plan to address climate change through actions within their campuses (Climate Action Plan 2030-CAP 2030). Through this plan, the university is engaging its staff and students in the process, providing a channel for them to ask questions, give feedback and actively engage in the actions conducted [ 55 ].

Nottingham Trent University [ 44 ] has run a 'Carbon Literacy Training' supporting staff and students with carbon literacy. It is an offer by the Green Academy at Nottingham Trent University that designed this Climate Education Course and in parallel designed one of the two open-source Carbon Literacy Toolkits for Higher Education (HE) and Universities funded by BEIS for the HE sector in the UK [ 41 ]. In total 13 internal courses have been organized in the last 2 years, with over 250 students and 120 staff participating. Also, this university has offered an online course 'Sustainability in Practice Certificate' (SiP) to all 34.000 students at NTU since 2013, covering all SDGs with a stronger focus on SDG13 added in 2019; 6233 students have completed SiP to date.

In December 2019, KTH Royal Institute of Technology [ 31 ] decided on university-wide climate goals for education, research, collaboration and campus activities. As one of initiatives—all employees at KTH need to have knowledge of climate challenges and actively work to reduce the climate impact based on their role and function at KTH.

Public initiatives

Nottingham Business School, a faculty within Nottingham Trent University, has led the design and distribution of the 'Carbon Literacy Training for Business Schools', which over 400 Academics representing more than 100 business schools in 42 countries worldwide have completed successfully during 2019 and 2020 [ 50 ].

At University of Colombo [ 64 ], awareness programs on climate change have also been conducted for school children, employees at certain institutions, and public (i.e., through public lectures). At campus, awareness is raised by reducing carbon footprint over time, and better waste management.

As a result of an action initiated by administration and students at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) associated with the impact of fossil fuels on climate change [ 10 ], this institution is divesting by the endowment from companies that are developing fossil fuel resources, spreading various types of climate change disinformation and performing anti-climate lobbying by promoting their divestment and organizing Fossil Fuel divestment days [ 37 ].

University of Toronto within its School of Continuing studies (part of a life-learning program) is another example since they launched the course 'Climate Change Policy and Practice' associated with learning the methodology for calculating GHG emissions, GHG reporting and risk management [ 66 ].

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an additional impulse to new events and activities at universities [ 19 ].

Other climate change-related activities

The University of Fort Hare [ 58 ] has a research center 'Risk & Vulnerability Science Centre' strategically established in 2011 by South Africa’s Department of Science & Innovation. Its main goal is to cope and adapt capacities of rural communities to climate change by improving scientific understanding and developing technologies and innovations to respond to challenges induced by climate change. As a scientific center it has an annual budget to conduct climate change research and since its inception, the budget has been increasing every year. Due to the climate change catastrophes (droughts and floods) experienced in South Africa with more effects being felt within the municipality since 2019, the Centre has performed research collaborations from external local and international funders to tackle climate change issues facing the province. The Centre was selected to conduct climate change awareness workshops for the 2019 National Science Week by the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA), entitled 'Facing the Harsh Realities of Climate Change'. It also trained 60 unemployed youths on Household Food Security (including growing of climate resilient crops) in the face of climate change through a short learning program, assisted 15 unemployed youths to establish and register 2 cooperatives on crop production of climate resilient crops in South Africa and trained 25 unemployed youths on climate risks and environmental education.

The University of Colombo [ 64 ] applied for the Green Metric award in 2020, and was ranked fourth among the other universities in the country, however, the University of Colombo earned the highest marks for the Energy and Climate Change category. Currently, several climate change-related research projects involving local and international collaborators are underway.

This paper has presented an overview of the extent to which matters related to climate change are tackled within the teaching and research practices at universities, with a focus on the training needs. There is a perceived need for this climate change-related research, since climate change is a major global problem, and knowledge about it is becoming increasingly important for future professionals, who need to be made familiar with strategies for its mitigation and adaptation as part of their university studies. Through a mixed research strategy, which entailed a bibliometric research, a worldwide online survey and case studies, the study shed some light on various aspects related to teaching and further needs on climate change within university programs.

In general, considering the great diversity of results presented in section three, one of the conclusions that can be drawn is that due considerations to CCE in HE courses are perceived by universities as important, since strategies to promote mitigation and adaptation demand multidisciplinary approaches. Also, as highlighted in the survey results, respondents in general reported that in their countries climate change is perceived as a matter of genuine concern, acknowledging that there is a growing demand for professionals with training in this area.

It is a matter of fact that not all universities are fully prepared for addressing climate change in their curricula and further, thus improvements are needed. One of the areas to be improved is in respect of curriculum innovations, i.e., making provisions to include climate change in teaching programs, and in various courses across the spectrum of academic disciplines. To do so, some of the barriers identified in this paper need to be overcome, and one of such barriers is the limitation in the training of teaching staff. In addition, international partnerships for CCE promotion and more opportunities for exchange of experiences among institutions can be highlighted as one of the steps that should be taken, to facilitate curricular innovations.

This study has some limitations. For instance, in the bibliometric analysis, the studied documents were collected via the WoS database and analyzed using the VOSviewer software. Even though the WoS database is one of the most relevant scientific databases in the world, there are others that could have also been used, to offer a comparison. Regarding the VOSviewer software, the parameters used in the analysis, and chosen by the researchers had their scope limited to the main focus of the study, namely on levels of emphasis to CCE. Regarding the survey, the size sample is too small to allow a great generalization of the results. Finally, regarding the case studies, even though 12 of them were analyzed, a greater diversity could provide a wider range of results.

Despite these constraints, the study provides a welcome addition to the literature, since it offers an overview of the training needs related to sustainable development in HE. The sample of 45 countries offers a rough profile of the trends seen today, whereas the case studies illustrate some of the potentials seen in this rapidly growing field.

The implications of this paper and the research performed are threefold. Firstly, it reiterates the growing emphasis universities give to climate change, as documented in the literature. Secondly, it outlines the key role played by training provisions in this process. Thirdly, it showcases examples of successful inclusion of matters related to climate change in university programs, and how some of the challenges may be overcome. Based on the lessons learned, some of the actions universities may adopt to better take into account matters related to climate change are:

• i. A cross-cutting emphasis to climate change, across courses and disciplines;
• ii. Identification of specific strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum for further improvement;
• iii. Greater provisions for training programs for academic staff, so as to encourage them for a greater engagement in this area;
• iv. Build a bridge between climate change teaching and research to maximize the synergies.

As to future studies, it is suggested that further works documenting experiences of curricular innovations for CCE in HEIs in different regions are undertaken, especially in respect of achieving synergies among disciplines.

Due to the urgency of the climate challenges seen today—and expected in the future—this paper argues that no university can afford to ignore this topic. As seen in the results and discussion section, there are many on-going initiatives in respect of climate change teaching, which show it is perfectly feasible to engage in them. Teaching initiatives, combined with climate change research programmes, can make sure that universities are able to make their contribution towards addressing a problem, which is global in nature but whose impacts are mostly felt at the local level.

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Authors' contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design, more specifically: conceptualization: WLF; Methodology: AS, MS, ALS, MM, ID, ISR. Formal analysis and investigation: AS, MS, ALS, MM, ID, ISR. Writing—original draft preparation: WLF, MS, AS, JML, ALS, MM, FMO, ID, RA, IR, FD, MAPD, MK, GF, MMC, AM, PM-H, SKS and EL. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

There is no external funding received for the research included in the manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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