It is likely that the process of global climate change will continue to accelerate. There is a lack of political will to confront the problem and the consequences for humanity -- including widespread suffering and institutional destabilization -- will be disastrous. How should educators respond to a catastrophic future? Here, Bryan Warnick argues…

In this time of climate change, many young children dream about finding ways to save the planet. The curriculum teaches about the problems -- and about the small changes that can be made to slow down global warming. But children need more skills for the jobs of the future and to be taught how to bring their amazing ideas to life.

Amy Strachan and Jemima Davey's new book, "Saving the Planet One Science Lesson at a Time" (Strachan and Davey, 2022) uses the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all; United Nations, 2015) as a framework to show that science knowledge and skills can support the achievement…

The climate emergency is a source of anxiety for many young people. Images of drought, heat waves, wildfires, storms and flooding are increasingly appearing in the media. Today's children stand to be the recipients of our legacy of climate change, while not feeling empowered to do anything about it, so perhaps it is no wonder they are anxious.…

My journey in the field of stress and coping began in the mid 1980s when I was researching the rather new field of childhood depression. It was a relatively under-explored field, and as a clinical and educational psychologist it was becoming increasingly apparent that there were concerns of young people, with some of these reflected in their…

Many students have expressed that they feel highly distressed by the state of the world they are inheriting. Extreme weather and wildfires around the globe, and increasingly sobering assessments about projected futures by researchers, activists, and global leaders have led to a growing consensus that the world is at a turning point when it comes…

The English classroom is an indispensable site to critically engage the social complexity of the climate crisis and COVID-19. A question comes up, however, about how to plan for such critical engagement when teaching canonical literature that is seemingly removed from the specific concerns of the current moment. The focus of this article is on…

Students around the world have led protests over inaction on climate change. They have done this through 'climate change strikes'. These actions raise larger questions about young people's perception of the relevance of schooling to their concerns. What should and could be the response of schools? What would it take for students to recognise that…

Critical realism offers a useful epistemology and ontology for conceptualizing theoretical and methodological considerations in global learning and may help to bridge the quantitative/qualitative divide that plagues social science. This article elaborates critical realist principles, concepts and methodologies to explain how they can be employed…

Instructors may be reluctant to adopt simulations because of time, labor, or material constraints, or perceived incompatibility with large classes. In fact, simple games can cover multiple key concepts with minimal time and effort by the instructor. Simple games are also adaptable to other topics and classes, including large lectures. This article…

This article describes and discusses a unit of work taught by Maria Iki, a Social Sciences teacher at James Cook High School in South Auckland. The unit was taught as part of the TLRI project Tuhia ki Te Ao--Write to the Natural World. The project is concerned to develop students' eco-literacy and to help them to inform their environmental…

Can science teaching contribute to developing skills for managing uncertainty towards the future and projecting imagination forwards? If so, how? In this paper, we outline an approach to 'teach the future' through science education. In the first part, we describe a framework that has been constructed to orient the design of teaching modules…

Misconceptions about climate change are common, which suggests a need to effectively address the subject in the classroom. This article describes a project-based science activity in which students report on the physical basis, adaptations, and mitigation of this global problem, adapting the framework of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel…

Global warming is a current environmental issue that has been linked to an increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. To raise awareness of the problem, various simple experiments have been proposed to demonstrate the effect of carbon dioxide on the planet's temperature. This article describes a similar experiment, which…

Can the higher education faculty sustain itself as a profession? And why does this question matter as much as more frequently asked questions regarding access, costs, quality, governance, and competitiveness? This special issue of "Higher Learning Research Communications" seeks to address these questions by posing as a unifying concept…