By: Giorgia F.
The COVID-19 pandemic has no doubt changed people’s lives forever. Daily routines and social gatherings alike may very well never be seen in the same light as they once were. As many people, from citizens to government officials, wish for a return to normal, the question often becomes, is this normality really what we should be striving towards?
This pandemic has highlighted many weaknesses in structural institutions across the globe including the educational system. Specifically, climate education, which has often been neglected in K-12 schools across the United States despite impending climate change, illustrates the need to address these issues even more so in the face of a global health emergency. The tragedy of COVID-19 has given the US and the rest of the world an opportunity to reflect on these broken systems that, combined, have led humanity to this current crossroad.
One way, argues the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to create a more resilient future is the introduction of a profound climate education curriculum in K-12 education. Currently UNESCO promotes its Education for Sustainable development (ESD) plan which, in addition to addressing other goals, gears towards providing equal climate education at all grade levels (UNESCO). Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of climate education cannot be overlooked. While upon first glance, environmental curriculum does not seem to be the world's most pressing issue, creating a strong foundation of critical thinkers and problem solvers, as ESD aims to do, will ensure that future generations learn from past structural inadequacies and do better in the years to come.
The above outlines the 17 goals of sustainable development, all of which are addressed by ESD (UNESCO).
UNESCO’s vision of using education as a tool for averting health crises in the future highlights specifically climate education’s necessity for understanding disease ecology and its relation to climate change. Being able to understand how disease evolution, among many other things, has been impacted by climate change allows for better preparedness in the case of future pandemics.
Above all, climate education programs such as ESD allow for a global connectedness that is necessary in combating COVID-19 and any future pandemics.
While climate education reform may be the last thing on many people’s minds, it is more connected to the current COVID crisis than it seems. COVID has laid bare social inequities, including those in the realm of sustainability education that must be addressed not only to return to “normal” but to create a better and more resilient future.
Discussion Questions:
How might it be beneficial to take a global viewpoint when discussing both COVID-19 and climate change?
In what ways has the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted issues with current climate education in your community?