In England, the government has decided to cut out climate change education from its curriculum for under-14-year-olds. The Guardian reports:
The latest draft guidelines for children in key stages 1 to 3 have no mention of climate change under geography teaching and a single reference to how carbon dioxide produced by humans impacts on the climate in the chemistry section. There is also no reference to sustainable development, only to the “efficacy of recycling”, again as a chemistry subject.
This is, uh, troubling. And one 15-year-old, Esha Marhawa, is trying to convince the government to change its decision. Because, hey, maybe it would be useful for kids to start learning about this really intense thing that’s going to affect them for the rest of their lives. Or as she puts it:
Climate change is the most pressing and threatening issue to modern-day society. Through lack of understanding from generations before us, we are having to fix it. And how can we do this without education? …
Our government, part of the generation who bear much of the responsibility for this problem, intends to not only fail to act on climate change themselves but to obscure the truth from children and young people.
So she started a petition to ask the education secretary to reconsider. It currently has 14,452 supporters. You can join them here.
