Sustainable schools – educate now

Resources for teaching students inside and outside the classroom and training staff to teach climate change confidently

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Climate Change Teaching Resources for all ages

• Transform Our World have a range of useful teacher-related resources from individual lesson plans and assemblies, to full-scale year-long programmes, on a range of sustainability and environment-based topics. Age group is specified.
• The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a set of 17 goals designed to support human development without destroying the planet. This video explains the goals and there is a wealth of great teaching activities related to each of the goals. Transform Our World have a resource to help you get started with the SDGs
• UNICEF UK Children’s Rights– teaching resources to enable children to learn about and campaign on children’s rights and climate change.
• What is COP and Resources for Schools
• The Pod– interactive sustainability website with resources such as the ‘Switch On to Switching Off lesson plan’ . Need to register to access.
• Damian Gameau’s film, 2040 presents a very positive vision of a low carbon future and is a great stimulus for work on understanding climate change and how to address it. The 2040 Education Portal provides schools and educators with a comprehensive package of free curriculum-aligned educational resources and explains how to run a 2040 film screening in your school. Commonsense Media says this film is suitable for 8+ but you should check you agree.

Climate Change Teaching Resources for Primary

• BBC Bitesize The Regenerators – including articles plus Regenerators Lessons Age 5-7 and Lessons Ages 7-11
• Earthcubs – a new set of resources to inspire 3 -11 year olds about sustainability and the world around them.
• Climate Science in a Nutshell– a collection of videos, aimed at older primary school children, explaining some of the key climate issues 
• Download the OLLIE Foundation free mini wellbeing curriculum around planting seeds and taking care of your wellbeing with primary lesson plans, activities and worksheets.
• Good books for primary-age children include:
  • Little Book for BIG Changes by Kirsten Liepmann, Karen Ng, and illustrated by Mona Karaivanova
  • All books in the Wild Tribe Heroes series
  • Our Planet by Matt Whyman
  • The Journey Home by Frann Preston-Cannon
  • The Trouble with Dragons by Debi Gliori 
  • George Saves the World by Lunch Time by Jo Readman and Ley Honor Roberts 
  • Greta and the Giants by Zoe Tucker
• Good activities include:
  • Animal Crafts for Kids
  • Painting a butterfly with the kids
  • Make bird feeders from apples
  • Woodland Trust– top ten nature activities

Climate Change Teaching Resources for Secondary

• NASA Climate Kids– a website designed for children to explore and learn about climate change
• 39 Ways to Save the Planet, 14 min podcasts (BBC Radio 4) . Positive ways for tackling Climate Change and Diversity Loss, also demonstrating many innovations to inspire pupils today into working on these challenges with their IT and STEM skills development in a few years time. Suitable for 15+
• BBC Bitesize The Regenerators – including materials for ages 9-13 and materials for ages 14+
• Short Film by Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot
• WWF Shaping Our Future Campaign– materials for teaching climate change in schools
• Paul Turner, Head of Geography at Bedales School in Hampshire, has compiled a variety of resources in order to equip teachers to teach the climate emergency. Including material to read, videos to watch & content to teach
• Take a Bite Out of Climate Change- resources for schools exploring how food choices contribute to climate change
• Science Museum – Carbon Cycle Caper: Resources include notes for teachers, questions, process cards and a presentation. Students “play out” the carbon cycle, understand how it has affected our use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution and its impacts on the climate

Educating the Educators about Climate Change

Good links to help teachers with professional development and to support Eco-leads or others who want to get managers and school leaders mobilised. See also our Act Now and Join Now Schools pages.

• Guide for talking to children about climate change and making sure you are being age appropriate for this emotive topic.
• Open University– Nature and Environment course
• Future Learn– Climate Change courses
• edX– Climate Change: The Science and Global Impact
• How Bad are Bananas? The producers of the game also provide guidance on how to play it through their “Carbon Academy” and they run broader Carbon Literacy Courses for teachers via zoom at a cost of £150 for two half days.  The courses are accredited by the Carbon Literacy Trust.
• Climate Conversations: Run a conversation within a group of staff colleagues, after school, either as a two hour session or two one hour sessions. If you want to talk about climate with your colleagues, but aren’t sure how, here are some ready-made materials to help you produced by Sustainable St Albans..

Educating the Wider School Community about Climate Change