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Schools need to inspire and educate climate change researchers – here’s how we can help

Over the last year there have been many records set in the weather patterns in the UK and across the world, due to increased levels of greenhouse gases.

22 October 2024
View up towards the sky through a leafy tree

Climate change education is becoming increasingly important in schools, colleges and universities as we find ways to mitigate and adapt to these changes.

Through education, we will find ways to bring together new skills and knowledge so that we can come up with workable and evidence-based solutions.  

Schemes like the Woodland Trust Conservation Challenge, featured this week on ITV News, therefore, provide an important vehicle for young people with passion for the subject to come together with support and resource to put together innovative projects that can boost biodiversity and support and protect our Woodlands.

These schemes are particularly important because we know that trees are natural regulators of the climate, and so will be a key part of the effort to mitigate climate change.

Despite this, we tend to underappreciate the central role of trees in our environment and society. Yet plants store the most carbon of all organisms on the planet – 450 gigatonnes compared to animals, who only store 2.6 gigatonnes. Trees take in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in photosynthesis and can store it in their stems and trunks, potentially reducing the rise in greenhouse gases.

The DFE recognises the urgency of the need to empower young people and require every school to have sustainability lead and have a climate action plan in place by 2025. Our resources directly support teachers and students in delivering these vital actions

Professor Jeremy Pritchard, School of Biosciences

Trees are home to a wide range of biodiversity from bacteria, microorganisms, invertebrates, plants, lichens and animals. All these provide a range of free services to us, from providing food, cooling our cities, reducing flooding, cleaning up pollution and even making us feel good.

At the Birmingham institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), we are also contributing to the drive to engage young people with climate change. We are supporting schools in teaching the climate change curriculum in an up-to-date and research informed manner.

The free resources we have designed support the development of specific skills, for example the learning of techniques to assess plant diversity in the face of climate change – through to global initiatives that bring young people together to find local solutions, be they oak, mangroves or rain forests to protect them in the future.

Supporting the education pipeline to be engaging, but also informed by research can help us to deliver a new cohort of skilled young people that will work together to find solutions to climate change ranging across plants to policy.

The DFE recognises the urgency of the need to empower young people and require every school to have sustainability lead and have a climate action plan in place by 2025. Our resources directly support teachers and students in delivering these vital actions.

Featured staff

  • Professor Jeremy Pritchard

    Professor of Life Sciences Education

    Professor Jeremy Pritchard is Professor of Life Sciences Education at the University of Birmingham and Director of Education or the College of Life and Environmental Sciences

    Phone: +44 (0)121 41 45570
    Email: j.pritchard@bham.ac.uk

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