Pierre Léna and Djian Sadadou. Office for Climate Education, Paris, France

Education needs educators capable of developing an ethics of ecology, and helping people, through effective pedagogy, to grow in solidarity, responsibility and compassionate care.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, in Chap. 6. Ecological education and Spirituality

1.    Introduction

From the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, Rio Summit 1992) to the publication of the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (2015) and during the following decade until today, the preoccupation for education in climate change has steadily grown in international and national bodies, as being one of the complex but efficient tools to act on the threats of climate change (for a detailed analysis, see Borde et al 2024).

In 2015 at the Conference of Parties (COP21), the Paris Agreement, today being quasi-unanimously ratified by 192 nations, provided a solid basis for action of the governments. Its Art. 12 reads: “Parties shall cooperate in taking measures, as appropriate, to enhance climate change education […], recognizing the importance of these steps with respect to enhancing actions under this Agreement”. Then, up to the last COP28 in Dubai, prescribed progresses were slow but noticeable, education concerns slowly being considered in COPs and by governments, as evidenced by the hosting by the UAE of the first ever education pavilion at COP28.

The same year 2015, the United Nations adopted the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as part of the Agenda 2030. These 17 SDGs are very broad and cover all the aspects of an ideal ecological transition, from science to economy and finance, as shows their more detailed declination in 169 sub-goals. Therefore, introducing sustainable development as an objective for education is virtuous but often too general to become operational and efficient (Léna 2020). On the other hand, the focused and science-embedded themes of climate change and biodiversity can more easily impact on curricula and teachers’ practice, as discussed here. Both themes are closely related, but we focus here on climate change education.

Developing it in indigenous cultures, most often marked with poverty, faces special challenges, but cannot be done independently of an effort dealing with education in all countries, since climate issues are essentially global ones. We present below some actions carried out in this context by the Office for Climate Education, a structure we created in France in 2018, to help teachers in primary and secondary schools, worldwide, to cope with education on climate change. Broadly speaking, this includes: the need to prepare the youth for a threatening future; a challenge to make teachers able to convey a proper message, based on scientific knowledge, while developing a critical mind as well as a hopeful heart; a transformation of curricula decided by governments.

2.    The Office for Climate Education and indigenous cultures

Since 1995, the French Academy of sciences had developed a model named La main à la pâte for improving science education in primary, then middle schools (Léna 2012, Fondation La main à la pâte 2024). In collaboration with science academies in a number of countries, and with the InterAcademy Partnership (InterAcademy Partnership 2024), this model of active science education was implemented in over 50 countries, sometimes on a local and experimental basis, sometimes on a broad scale. It often had to work with indigenous cultures, where the scientific concepts carried by modern science needed adaptation and a specific pedagogy. Today, science education has to consider not only the beauty of science for itself and the natural curiosity of children, but also the societal issues which often bring science and its applications to the forefront of the public debate (Alberts 2024).

This is why, after the COP21 and the Paris Agreement in 2015, an offspring of this Foundation was created, keeping its spirit and pedagogy of active science education, but focusing explicitly on climate education. Today, the Office of Climate Education (OCE), based in Paris, employs 15 full-time persons and proposes various pedagogical tools for teachers of primary and secondary schools (Office for Climate Education 2024). The OCE adapts for teachers the Reports for Policy Makers which accompany each IPCC Report. These adaptations are published in the series The Climate in our Hands, covering today the 1.5°C Report, Ocean and Cryosphere, Climate change and Land, and the 6^th IPCC Assessment Report. It then publishes a variety of pedagogical resources to help teachers in the class room on these topics, trying to refer to subjects already present in the prescribed, existing curricula. In the process of creating these guides, great care is taken to involve education actors which would represent and respect a diversity of cultures (currently Chile, India, Indonesia, Mauritius, Mexico…). OCE has fostered a specific program in Latin America (ALEC 2024), which has numerous interactions with indigenous cultures in Colombia and Mexico, now expanding in partnerships with Argentina, Chile, Costa-Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru. A similar program in Africa, initially in Senegal, Kenya and Mauritius, is set to start in 2024 and is likely to encounter even more the question of children from indigenous backgrounds having to face climate change.

In Colombia, developing a partnership with the Academia Colombiana de Ciencias, the University of Rosario and the NGO Fondo Acción, eight regional dialogues have been undertaken with nearly a thousand teachers, attempting to remain as close as possible to their local conditions (mountain, rural areas). In Mexico, in cooperation with the remarkable NGO Innovec (Innovec 2024), a contextualized module, Introduction to Climate Change, has been implemented with primary school teachers of five local communities, including the Mazahua and Otomi, located in the Central Plateau of the country. In Southern Chile, a thorough work is undertaken for Mapuche and Araucarian areas by the Pontificia Universidad Villarica collaborating with the Siemens Stiftung and its Experimento program (Bascope & Canihuan 2016, Bascope et al. 2021).

The first lesson from these still limited attempts is the constant observation that the curiosity of children for natural facts and explanations is universal, no matter their cultural background. But indeed, the approach to climate education in developed countries builds up on abstraction, lack of deep contact with nature, consumerism and belief in the power of technology. On the other hand, in indigenous communities, there exists a deep experience with senses and a knowledge of nature, a rich descriptive language of phenomena, plants and animals, a sense of fragility of humans facing the natural phenomena. On such basis, a long way has to be undertaken to enter the scientific explanations of climate change, the rational motivations to act and protect present and future humans, and to foster climate justice in a global system. But there is no doubt, on the basis of ALEC project’s experience, that teachers in these indigenous communities are more receptive to teaching climate issues to their students than teachers in France.

Let us conclude this with a quotation of the Fondo Acción analysis in Colombia:

“These dialogues sought to gather knowledge, wisdom, languages and experiences from the different regions of the country on environmental education and climate education. Little by little we are getting ready for these days of dialogue, with our hearts filled with joy for having the opportunity to be invited to talk, to share experiences, to validate knowledge and to imagine our future. With a pause to observe the environment, to feel the humidity of the moor, the sea breeze or the freshness of the river, always allowing ourselves to be enveloped by the wonders of nature, but with the awareness that environmental problems and the risks of climate change are happening right now and are part of our lives and that, with a positive and proactive outlook, we can act and transform situations now” (Fondo Acción 2024).

3.    UNESCO, poverty and climate change education

Analyzing the evolution of poverty with the various IPCC transition scenarios shows that, in 2050, global poverty could be reduced from today’s 3 billion humans to 1.3 billion, if scenario SSP2 (Shared Socioeconomics Path, in IPCC Sixth Assessment Report) can be achieved (Soergel et al 2021). The world map in 2050 shows a high correlation of intense poverty with areas of indigenous cultures, especially in Africa, Asia and South America.

Recently, UNESCO has initiated a number of detailed studies on the status of climate change education. Exploring curricula in 100 countries, it found that half of these have no mention of climate change (UNESCO 2021). When 95% of teachers agree that teaching climate change is necessary, barely a third of them consider they could do it properly. Among the students, 70% cannot explain what is climate change. There is clearly an immense gap to fulfill. Since 2023, following a UN decision, UNESCO has established a Greening Education Partnership (UNESCO 2024a) with a four-folded set of goals (Fig. 2).

UNESCO is indeed an essential UN body, which carries the interface of climate change education with the scientific community on one hand, with ministries of education and schools on the other. The Office for Climate Education is a co-coordinator of the ambitious scheme and has contributed to the writing of the Greening Education Guidance (UNESCO 2024). The goal here is to serve “as the basis for a review of existing curriculum and the integration of climate change across all subjects including the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities, and technical education”. As a support of this UNESCO action in 2023, OCE held 94 teacher training and conferences in 21 countries, outside the specific ALEC project in Latin America. Many of these countries have indigenous communities with whom dialog is crucial for inclusive education curricula.

As the yearly UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) offers a worldwide rendez-vous on climate issues, OCE inaugurated at COP26 (Glasgow in 2021) a Teacher’s COP which repeats yearly. In 2023 in Dubai, co-organised with UNESCO, the Teachers’ COP had gathered 400 submissions from 71 countries. Ten teachers, some representing indigenous communities in Mexico, presented their projects during a hybrid event which gathered 1500 teachers and policy-makers (Fig. 3). Planning for such event in future COPs will ensure that voices of teachers are listened to, and cultural diversity accounted for in implementing climate change education.

4.    Conclusion

This short presentation just gives a hint of the wealth of possibilities offered when introducing climate change education in indigenous communities, and of the progress made in the last few years in this direction. The hope is that, through dialog at local, national, regional and international level, the intense perception of nature and human fragility in indigenous communities will progressively inspire the curricula and the practices of schools everywhere in the world.

Acknowledgments

The authors have benefited from the OCE experience gathered in Latin America, with special thanks to its director David Wilgenbus, to Claudia Robles (Mexico) and Martin Bascope (Chile). The constant support of climatologist V. Ramanathan (Scripps Institution, California) for implementing climate education has been invaluable since 2014, as well as the support of Bruce Alberts (San Francisco) in fostering science education worldwide in the last decades.

References

Borde B, Lescarmontier L, Vogt N, Léna P (2024) ‘Education as a Strategy for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation’, in M. Lackner et al. (eds.), Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Springer Nature. [Online] Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6431-0_149-2

Léna P (2020). ‘Educating for sustainable development: A crucial role for Science Academies’, in W. Arber, J. von Braun, M. Sánchez Sorondo (Eds.), Science and Sustainability, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum. [Online] Available at https://www.pas.va/en/publications/acta/acta24pas/lena.html

Léna P (2012) ‘Education in science: its values and the role of the scientific Community’. Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei (2012) 23 (Suppl 1):S13-S16, Springer. DOI 10.1007/s12210-012-0195-z. [Online] Available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12210-012-0195-z

Fondation La main à la pâte (2024). [Online] Available at https://fondation-lamap.org

InterAcademy Partnership (2024). [Online] Available at https://www.interacademies.org/project/iap-science-education-programme

Alberts B et al (2024). Why trust science? an essay as Foreword of Essential Cell Biology (6^th edition). [Online] Available at https://sciedandmisinfo.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj25316/files/media/file/why_trust_science-ecb.pdf

Office for Climate Education (2024). [Online] Available at https://www.oce.global/en

ALEC (2024). [Online] Available at https://www.alec.oce.global/en/projects/alec

Innovec (2024). [Online] Available at http://innovec.org.mx/home/

Bascope M, Canihuan (2016). [Online] Available at https://uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/442b82bf-6d0c-4c95-a113-08924190fd2e/ARRUGADOCOMOHUESILLO_PROPUESTA_PROFESOR.pdf

Bascope M, Reiss K, Cortès J, Gutierrez P (2021). ‘Implementation of Culturally Relevant Science-Based Projects in Preschools and Primary Schools: From Roots to Wings’, in Handbook of Research on Environmental Education Strategies for Addressing Climate Change and Sustainability (pp. 22-38). IGI Global. DOI:10.4018/978-1-7998-7512-3.ch002

Soergel, B., Kriegler, E., Bodirsky, B.L. et al. (2021). Combining ambitious climate policies with efforts to eradicate poverty. Nat Commun 12, 2342. [Online] Available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22315-9

Fondo Acción (2024). [Online] Available at https://fondoaccion.org/

UNESCO (2021). ‘Getting every school climate-ready’. [Online] Available at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379591

UNESCO (2024a). ‘Greening Education Partnership’. [Online] Available at https://www.unesco.org/en/sustainable-development/education/greening-future

UNESCO (2024b) ‘Greening curriculum guidance: Teaching and learning for climate action’. [Online] Available at https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/greening-curriculum-guidance-teaching-and-learning-climate-action