TEACHING A CLIMATE CURRICULUM: PRIMARY COURSES

Photo credit: Edinburgh Community Solar Coop.

This course, tailored for primary teachers, is based on Leeds DEC’s groundbreaking Climate Curriculum, developed with experts from the University of Leeds (some of whom are key contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.)

This curriculum offers a holistic framework with age-appropriate learning outcomes from KS1 to KS4. The climate crisis reaches into so many areas of our lives and the Climate Curriculum encompasses aspects including: scientific knowledge; values, attitudes and mindsets; emotions and the psychology of behaviour change; climate justice and injustice; positive stories of hope in action from around the world (see the full 8 areas below):

Climate Curriculum Key Ideas:

Outline:

Leeds DEC has developed the Climate Curriculum in conjunction with climate specialists at the University of Leeds; colleagues from Black Lives Matter, young people from the climate movement, education experts in Latin America, Africa and Europe, national and international global learning networks, and teaching colleagues. This means that both the framework and the training have been designed to be flexible and adaptable with an understanding of the pressures on schools and what is realistic within daily school life.

Our CPD training and support package will provide you with the tools and approaches to integrate the Climate Curriculum meaningfully across your taught and hidden curriculum with the minimum of disruption.

Outcomes:

By the end of the course your staff will have:

  • A sound overview of the essential Climate Change & related sustainability issues and the knowledge to teach them well and with confidence.
  • Tools and guidance to incorporate Climate Curriculum Learning Outcomes across your curriculum.
  • Access to engaging curriculum-linked resources and mentoring to create and trial your own lessons.
  • Opportunity for discussion, sharing and learning with colleagues.
  • A framework for integrating climate across all areas of school life.

Outcomes for the school:

  • Enables you to incorporate our progressive climate curriculum across your institution.
  • Fun, engaging and interactive approaches to teaching climate change.
  • Support your staff team to gain a shared understanding of the importance and urgency of climate education (and its relationship with ecological sustainability).

Outcomes for pupils:

  • Provides specific and relevant age-appropriate knowledge.
  • Addresses eco-anxiety through fostering agency and hope.
  • Empowers students with practical things they can do to make a positive change

"Thank you so much to Leeds DEC for creating such an impactful, significant and relevant teaching course to educate our primary children and us teachers!" Emily Gilham, Science subject leader

 

 

'Very enlightening, many thanks for the excellent resources’  

‘This has been so much fun exploring CC in more depth and really thinking about how to embed the issues into my own subject and across the school.’ 

'This course has been incredibly useful. I have broadened my understanding of climate change and learned some very surprising information. I have gained lots of ideas and inspiration for my subject and also at whole school level.’ 

'Such an impactful course! Loads of resources to come back to, thank you for making it so accessible.'

‘Excellent resources, a good balance of reading, media and quizzes, a manageable amount to complete, very useful assignments. I’d already raved far and wide about your climate change curriculum objectives and will be suggesting that this is adopted at a primary school I’m a governor for. Thank you. This is without a doubt one of the best resources out there.’