he United Nations' (UN) adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was a global endorsement of the concept of building a better world through education. The SDGs not only provide a vision for action and outcomes on a global level, but at the community level as well.
Sustainable development requires participation from the full spectrum of community members—from youths to adults to policymakers—to help define what sustainable development should look like for their local context. At the community level, development should not be top-down. It rises out of community identities and local visions for improvement. Youth can be an integral part of this visioning process, as they engage in learning about global issues in both formal (e.g., schools) and informal (e.g., museums) community-based education ecosystems.
At its core, formal education is primarily a responsibility of state officials, with regional or national level authorities being behind education policies and programs. While climate change and sustainability are typically thought of as global issues, we know that mitigation, adaptation, and resilience fall ultimately to communities. This research article draws on three recent global surveys of youth, teachers, and administrators to justify why community-based education ecosystems—both local and national—should enact policies and develop standards/curriculum for learning that support teachers and equip youth with the knowledge and tools for a more sustainable future.
Global Surveys of Youth
A 2020 global survey by Ernst & Young of nearly 6,000 active and former participants of Junior Achievement across 17 countries in 7 continents show that 82% of youth aged 16-25 (“Gen Z”) surveyed are optimistic about finding work and addressing global challenges in 2030 . Over 55% of Gen Z respondents consider the education ecosystem the most important institution to prepare them to succeed in 2030. But, to prepare for global citizenry, they want more time spent on subject areas related to environmental literacy (77%) and global awareness (70%) . Similarly, a recent survey by World’s Largest Lesson, UNICEF, UNESCO, and NetApp found that the majority of young people form 150 countries want to transform education, but 42% also said they are not learning enough about “protecting the planet and tackling climate change.”
Global Surveys of Educators
Teachers’ and school administrators’ perspectives about teaching climate change and other sustainable development topics align mostly with youth perspectives.
A methodologically rigorous 2023 global survey conducted by the Smithsonian Science Education Center and Gallup asked U.S. teachers and school administrators for youth ages 5-18 and school administrators about the presence of 11 of the 17 SDGs in their curriculum. Only approximately 30% of teachers said sustainability topics like climate action, clean water, and clean energy were included in their school curriculum, compared to 60% reported by teachers in Brazil, Canada, France, and India. Further, only 17% of U.S. teachers feel they have the necessary support from stakeholders, such as parents and school boards, to teach about sustainable development topics, compared to over 60% in the other countries.
U.S. teachers also reported that they do not have the time, knowledge, instructional materials, or expertise to teach about sustainability. However, this same global survey showed that all teachers, no matter where they live in the five countries surveyed, believe teaching about sustainability and climate action is important and they see incredible benefits for students.
Surveys like this reflect the perspectives and experiences of the respondents and are not a direct measurement of the academic content taught in schools in each country, nor do the findings reflect the quality of education. While the findings are not a reflection of the state of sustainable development for each country itself, they are one indicator.
Why are there differences across countries? One reason may be that each country’s education ecosystem is different—some are decentralized (where decisions about what to teach and how to teach are made at the local/state/provincial level); others are centralized, where decisions are made at the national level. The next section explains each.
Decentralized Education Ecosystems
In the U.S., education is a function of state government, per the U.S. constitution. However, because all things local are political, education reform in the U.S. is often intertwined with political decision-making at the state level. This means that if education reform advocates in the U.S. want to encourage teachers to include sustainable development topics in their classroom instruction, the first step is to integrate the topics into state standards. State standards then drive selection of instructional materials in the classroom and professional learning opportunities for teachers. But doing this on a national scale is not easy.
Decentralized education ecosystems like in the U.S. make it more difficult to enact widespread change. Even though over 40 of 50 U.S. states adopted or adapted similar science standards that drive what students should know and be able to do, many of these topics impact on religious or political sensibilities of local communities. In turn, educators face intense pressure to teach in particular ways, something that is well-documented in both evolution education and climate change education.
Centralized Education Ecosystems
In other countries, education reform is determined at the national or provincial level, and schools choose their curriculum from a list of instructional materials approved at that level. This means that if sustainable development is incorporated into national standards and education policies, teachers and administrators are expected to address them.
For example, both Brazil and India have made intentional, policy-level efforts to advance sustainability education in their schools. While various Brazilian policies have been enacted, a notable example is the National Curricular Guidelines on Environmental Education, which include explicit instruction of sustainable development and its link to environmental education. In India, environmental education has been compulsory since a supreme court judgment in 2003, although implementation challenges still exist. The country’s revised National Education Policy, released in 2020, specifically names sustainable development and living as a ”vision of the Policy” (p. 6) and calls for sustainable development to be integrated into teacher education (p. 23)."
Supporting Teachers and Youth for a Sustainable Future
The 2023 Smithsonian-Gallup survey showed that U.S. teachers reported a clear preference for the materials they would most likely use to teach their students about sustainability. In addition to administrative support, most U.S. teachers said direct experiences like field trips (57%) and hands-on materials (56%), along with professional development (70%), are the most helpful for teaching about sustainability. Results were similar in Canada and France. India teachers’ top choice was textbooks (47%); Brazil teachers had no clear preference.
Teachers’ preferences align with four strategic recommendations made by FHI360 to strengthen climate change education: (1) enact policies to support climate change education; (2) provide access to high-quality curricula materials that are grounded in scientific evidence; (3) support educators with training and professional development; and (4) scale up out-of-school time and work-based learning models within the community. Simultaneously, FHI360 also highlighted the importance of: elevating the voices of young people, especially those from marginalized populations; using solutions-focused interdisciplinary approaches; and, connecting local and global experiences in the community. To ensure a more transformative future, education ecosystems should reflect major socio-scientific change at the global level and be an opportunity to include marginalized groups in the process of education.
Summary
Three prominent global surveys demonstrate that youth. teachers, and administrators want the tools and knowledge to address the climate crisis and ensure a more sustainable future. Combined, these surveys revealed that youth want schools to tackle more complex socio-scientific issues and youth trust their teachers more than other adults for climate change information. Teachers across the globe, across both centralized and decentralized education ecosystems, believe teaching about sustainability and climate action is important and they see incredible benefits for students to teaching about sustainability topics that underlie the climate crisis.
These results, when combined, provide a comprehensive perspective on sustainability education, with a particular focus on transforming education for a more sustainable net zero future.
Editors’ Note: This article was included in our COP 28 special edition, which was published on November 21, 2023, and which you can find here. All articles were written with that publication time frame in mind.
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Supporting Teachers, Equipping Youth for a Sustainable Future
Image via AdobeStock
November 21, 2023
For community sustainable development policy to be successful, young people need to be active partners in policy design. Studies show the classroom is key to empowering youth to become effective stakeholders for sustainable development, write Drs. Carol O’Donnel, Brian Mandell, and Gillian Hinde.
T
he United Nations' (UN) adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was a global endorsement of the concept of building a better world through education. The SDGs not only provide a vision for action and outcomes on a global level, but at the community level as well.
Sustainable development requires participation from the full spectrum of community members—from youths to adults to policymakers—to help define what sustainable development should look like for their local context. At the community level, development should not be top-down. It rises out of community identities and local visions for improvement. Youth can be an integral part of this visioning process, as they engage in learning about global issues in both formal (e.g., schools) and informal (e.g., museums) community-based education ecosystems.
At its core, formal education is primarily a responsibility of state officials, with regional or national level authorities being behind education policies and programs. While climate change and sustainability are typically thought of as global issues, we know that mitigation, adaptation, and resilience fall ultimately to communities. This research article draws on three recent global surveys of youth, teachers, and administrators to justify why community-based education ecosystems—both local and national—should enact policies and develop standards/curriculum for learning that support teachers and equip youth with the knowledge and tools for a more sustainable future.
Global Surveys of Youth
A 2020 global survey by Ernst & Young of nearly 6,000 active and former participants of Junior Achievement across 17 countries in 7 continents show that 82% of youth aged 16-25 (“Gen Z”) surveyed are optimistic about finding work and addressing global challenges in 2030 . Over 55% of Gen Z respondents consider the education ecosystem the most important institution to prepare them to succeed in 2030. But, to prepare for global citizenry, they want more time spent on subject areas related to environmental literacy (77%) and global awareness (70%) . Similarly, a recent survey by World’s Largest Lesson, UNICEF, UNESCO, and NetApp found that the majority of young people form 150 countries want to transform education, but 42% also said they are not learning enough about “protecting the planet and tackling climate change.”
Global Surveys of Educators
Teachers’ and school administrators’ perspectives about teaching climate change and other sustainable development topics align mostly with youth perspectives.
A methodologically rigorous 2023 global survey conducted by the Smithsonian Science Education Center and Gallup asked U.S. teachers and school administrators for youth ages 5-18 and school administrators about the presence of 11 of the 17 SDGs in their curriculum. Only approximately 30% of teachers said sustainability topics like climate action, clean water, and clean energy were included in their school curriculum, compared to 60% reported by teachers in Brazil, Canada, France, and India. Further, only 17% of U.S. teachers feel they have the necessary support from stakeholders, such as parents and school boards, to teach about sustainable development topics, compared to over 60% in the other countries.
U.S. teachers also reported that they do not have the time, knowledge, instructional materials, or expertise to teach about sustainability. However, this same global survey showed that all teachers, no matter where they live in the five countries surveyed, believe teaching about sustainability and climate action is important and they see incredible benefits for students.
Surveys like this reflect the perspectives and experiences of the respondents and are not a direct measurement of the academic content taught in schools in each country, nor do the findings reflect the quality of education. While the findings are not a reflection of the state of sustainable development for each country itself, they are one indicator.
Why are there differences across countries? One reason may be that each country’s education ecosystem is different—some are decentralized (where decisions about what to teach and how to teach are made at the local/state/provincial level); others are centralized, where decisions are made at the national level. The next section explains each.
Decentralized Education Ecosystems
In the U.S., education is a function of state government, per the U.S. constitution. However, because all things local are political, education reform in the U.S. is often intertwined with political decision-making at the state level. This means that if education reform advocates in the U.S. want to encourage teachers to include sustainable development topics in their classroom instruction, the first step is to integrate the topics into state standards. State standards then drive selection of instructional materials in the classroom and professional learning opportunities for teachers. But doing this on a national scale is not easy.
Decentralized education ecosystems like in the U.S. make it more difficult to enact widespread change. Even though over 40 of 50 U.S. states adopted or adapted similar science standards that drive what students should know and be able to do, many of these topics impact on religious or political sensibilities of local communities. In turn, educators face intense pressure to teach in particular ways, something that is well-documented in both evolution education and climate change education.
Centralized Education Ecosystems
In other countries, education reform is determined at the national or provincial level, and schools choose their curriculum from a list of instructional materials approved at that level. This means that if sustainable development is incorporated into national standards and education policies, teachers and administrators are expected to address them.
For example, both Brazil and India have made intentional, policy-level efforts to advance sustainability education in their schools. While various Brazilian policies have been enacted, a notable example is the National Curricular Guidelines on Environmental Education, which include explicit instruction of sustainable development and its link to environmental education. In India, environmental education has been compulsory since a supreme court judgment in 2003, although implementation challenges still exist. The country’s revised National Education Policy, released in 2020, specifically names sustainable development and living as a ”vision of the Policy” (p. 6) and calls for sustainable development to be integrated into teacher education (p. 23)."
Supporting Teachers and Youth for a Sustainable Future
The 2023 Smithsonian-Gallup survey showed that U.S. teachers reported a clear preference for the materials they would most likely use to teach their students about sustainability. In addition to administrative support, most U.S. teachers said direct experiences like field trips (57%) and hands-on materials (56%), along with professional development (70%), are the most helpful for teaching about sustainability. Results were similar in Canada and France. India teachers’ top choice was textbooks (47%); Brazil teachers had no clear preference.
Teachers’ preferences align with four strategic recommendations made by FHI360 to strengthen climate change education: (1) enact policies to support climate change education; (2) provide access to high-quality curricula materials that are grounded in scientific evidence; (3) support educators with training and professional development; and (4) scale up out-of-school time and work-based learning models within the community. Simultaneously, FHI360 also highlighted the importance of: elevating the voices of young people, especially those from marginalized populations; using solutions-focused interdisciplinary approaches; and, connecting local and global experiences in the community. To ensure a more transformative future, education ecosystems should reflect major socio-scientific change at the global level and be an opportunity to include marginalized groups in the process of education.
Summary
Three prominent global surveys demonstrate that youth. teachers, and administrators want the tools and knowledge to address the climate crisis and ensure a more sustainable future. Combined, these surveys revealed that youth want schools to tackle more complex socio-scientific issues and youth trust their teachers more than other adults for climate change information. Teachers across the globe, across both centralized and decentralized education ecosystems, believe teaching about sustainability and climate action is important and they see incredible benefits for students to teaching about sustainability topics that underlie the climate crisis.
These results, when combined, provide a comprehensive perspective on sustainability education, with a particular focus on transforming education for a more sustainable net zero future.
Editors’ Note: This article was included in our COP 28 special edition, which was published on November 21, 2023, and which you can find here. All articles were written with that publication time frame in mind.
