Increasing Environmental Action Through Climate Change Education Programmes that Enable School Students, Teachers and Technicians to Contribute to Genuine Scientific Research

Abstract

School communities provide an important context for climate change education that explores the implications of climate change at a range of spatial scales and provides young people with information about how they can positively respond to the challenges posed by the Anthropocene. This research explores the experiences of secondary school teachers and technicians who, with their students, have actively participated in science research that has a climate change and/or biodiversity focus, for at least four months. The study uses reflexive thematic analysis to analyse semi-structured interviews of twenty-eight participants from a diverse geographical range across England and Scotland, U.K., and from a variety of educational and socio-economic contexts. This study suggests that some teachers and technicians are motivated to participate in research projects to enable students to engage with, and contribute to, science and research that could provide solutions to real-world challenges and problems including climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Teachers and technicians reported that participation in research projects developed some students’ sense of agency in the context of global challenges and this included students who were not already active in pro-environmental groups or activities. Learning from this approach to climate change education will be useful for educators in a range of settings as well as policy makers in the fields of climate change and education.