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Who should be teaching young people about the climate crisis?

Who should be teaching young people about the climate crisis?

7 April 2025

Read time: 3mins

‘The relevance of geography has never been greater and I urge geography specialists to share their expertise and help other teachers to make their own contribution, too.’

Alison Kitson

The current National Curriculum in England gives teachers of science, geography and citizenship a role in teaching young people about the climate and ecological crisis. Certainly, these subjects have a critical role to play. But other subjects can and should contribute and geography specialists can help them.

Subject associations and learned societies discussion on climate change

Last July, UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education partnered with the Natural History Museum and the Council for Subject Associations to bring subject associations and learned societies together to talk about climate change and sustainability education. What emerged were rich discussions about the distinctive contributions of different subjects.

Other subjects can, for example, build on geography by imagining more sustainable futures in English and art, developing sustainability consciousness through mathematics and PSHE (personal, social, health and economics) and exploring climate justice through history and music.

Climate change and sustainability report and recommendations

In the UCL report ‘The role of subjects and subject associations in climate change and sustainability education in England’ that followed the event, recommendations were made for a revised curriculum that builds on existing subject requirements in geography, science and citizenship and identifies new opportunities within and beyond those subjects to prepare young people for the uncertain future they face.

The report also calls for more professional development opportunities for teachers of all subjects. While this should include easily accessible, subject-specific support of the kind provided by the Geographical Association (GA) and UCL, it also includes less formal school initiatives. Primary schools are well placed to connect sustainability-related threads across the curriculum which might start with geography and be further developed elsewhere.

In secondary schools, geography teachers have a significant role to play in building other teachers’ confidence in these issues, including through cross-curricular collaborations. One example in the report is an enquiry about the past, present and future of sustainable cities, developed and taught by history and geography teachers at Westminster Academy. You can read more about this in ‘”Living cities” – foregrounding nature in urban environments, past, present and future’ in the GA’s Teaching Geography journal.

The relevance of geography

In a recent survey of 11-14 year olds, 87 per cent of respondents expressed concern about what the world will be like in the future because of climate change. The relevance of geography has never been greater and I urge geography specialists to share their expertise and help other teachers to make their own contribution, too.