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January 2022 - Education

Two-thirds of educators teaching science and chemistry to 11 to 19 year-olds believe the curriculum should include more content around climate change and sustainability:  A survey of educators has found that two-thirds of those teaching 11 to 19 year-olds believe the curriculum should include more content around climate change and environmental sustainability. The figure was even higher for primary school educators, with nine in 10 (91%) in support of a curriculum change. 

The survey by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) polled 619 professionals working in education who teach 5 to 19 year-olds, asking them about the current science curriculum and whether there should be more content around climate change and sustainability. 

When asked about how confident they currently feel about teaching these subjects, 88% of educators teaching 11 to 19 year-olds said they feel a least 'somewhat confident', while three-quarters of those teaching ages 5 to 11 years said the same (76%).

Looking at the barriers to teaching about climate change and sustainability to primary school age children, 57% said the current curriculum is not well designed to support teaching in this area, with the same percentage (57%) saying they do not have the time to teach current curriculum content in the context of sustainability. Just over a third of teachers polled said they do not have enough resources to teach these topics. 

Looking at secondary school children aged 11 to 14 years,  34% of educators said there is too much duplication of content, with 32% saying the curriculum is not well designed to support teaching about sustainability and climate change. For children aged 14 to 16 years, almost half cited too much duplicate content as a barrier to teaching, while 40% said there is not enough time to teach content in a sustainability context, and 38% said there are not enough resources available to them to teach. 

When considering the oldest age group (16 - 19 years), half the educators polled said that they lacked the subject knowledge to teach about climate change and sustainability (50%), while two-fifths said they are concerned about teaching it due to the fact it has the potential to be a controversial topic. Furthermore, 34% said that there is not enough time to teach topics that are not in the curriculum and will not contribute to the exam grade, with the same percentage (34%) saying that the current curriculum is not well designed to support this area of interest.

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