Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode, we explore a subject that’s deeply important to us as educators: the role of climate in the classroom. How are schools and universities placing climate change at the heart of learning—not just in science lessons, but across the whole school experience?
We look beyond the curriculum to discover how educators are fostering sustainable living and embedding green practices into everyday school life. From encouraging active travel and connecting students with the natural world, to making conscious, eco-friendly choices part of the school culture, we’ll share inspiring examples of how teaching can shape a greener future.
We’re thrilled to welcome three inspiring champions of climate education:
🌱 Jenny Wilson – A passionate advocate from the Green Schools Revolution, Jenny is actively involved in the Teach the Teacher initiative. She collaborates with schools in underserved communities, empowering students to create their own Climate Action Plans and become agents of change.
🌍 Will Wale – A student at LSE and the outgoing Youth Focal Point for Sustainability and Climate Change at the Department for Education, Will brings a wealth of experience. He’s worked closely with young people, educators, civil servants, and ministers to advance climate and sustainability education across the UK.
🏫 Professor Nicola Walshe – Pro-Director of Education at UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, Nicola is also the co-founder and Executive Director of the UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education. Her work focuses on transforming how climate education is delivered in schools nationwide.
Date of episode recording: 4th August 2025
Duration: 00:42:16
Language of episode: English
Presenter: Professor Mark Maslin and Dr Simon Chin-Yee
Presenter: Professor Mark Maslin and Dr Simon Chin-Yee
Guests:
Jenny Wilson, Green Schools Revolution https://www.greenschoolsrevolution.uk/
Will Wale, LSE student and Youth Focal Point for Sustainability and Climate Change at the DOE
Nicola Walsh, Professor and Pro Director of Education UCL IOE and CoFounder and Executive Director of UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/ucl-centre-climate-change-and-sustainability-education
Producers:
Adam Batstone
Caitlin Mullin
Creators and Guests
Host
Host
Professor Mark Maslin
Mark is a leading scientist interested in understanding climate change and humanity’s major challenges in the 21st century. He has written ten books and over 100 popular articles and regularly appears on radio and television, , including BBC One David Attenborough’s ‘Climate Change: The Facts’.
What is UCL Generation One: The Climate Podcast?
Generation One is the flagship climate podcast from University College London. Join our collective of passionate individuals dedicated to climate action and a fairer, more positive future – for us, and for the generations to come.
Our hosts Professor Mark Maslin and Dr. Simon Chin-Yee dive into the biggest challenges and solutions shaping the fight against climate change.
Joined by expert guests, they’ll be bringing you cutting-edge initiatives and inspiring climate action stories – from reimagining global energy systems to protecting our oceans, from using AI to decolonising climate solutions.
Tune in monthly to discover how we can turn climate science and ideas into real-world action.
Learn more about UCL’s Generation One climate campaign and access episode transcripts at ucl.ac.uk/climate-change.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. To get involved, email us at podcasts@ucl.ac.uk or find us on X using #UCLGenerationOne.
Language: English
Presenters: Professor Mark Maslin, Dr. Simon Chin-Yee
Producers: Adam Batstone, Caitlin Mullin, Jane Yelloly
We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.
Jenny Wilson:A problem you see is sustainability isn't always cool. And we don't like to admit that, but it's the truth. It's not always cool.
Will Wale:Most people in The UK are willing to at least somewhat change their lifestyle and at least somewhat willing to make those changes.
Nicola Walshe:If there's mistrust in science, the solution isn't to teach more science. We need to think about it in different ways and and different approaches.
Mark Maslin:This is generation one from University College London, turning climate science and ideas into action. Welcome back to UCL's generation one podcast. I'm your host, Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science here at UCL, which, of course, you should know by now means that I study climate change in the past, the present, and the future.
Simon Chin Yee:And I'm Simon Chin Yee from UCL's School of Public Policy, and my work focuses on the political economy of development and climate politics.
Mark Maslin:We are going to be discussing today a topic that as educators is very close to our hearts, and that topic is climate in the classroom. That is how is climate change being put at the centre of learning in our schools? We're not just talking in terms of putting climate change and science on the curriculum, but we're also looking at how schools are promoting sustainable living and embracing green teaching practices. Whether it is encouraging active travel, connecting students with the outdoors, or embedding conscious choices into school life.
Simon Chin Yee:And this is so important, isn't it, Mark? I think this is why we need to have this podcast here today because I've had students from over the past six five, six years at UCL that have actually asked for mandatory climate teaching in their in not in just politics, but across UCL. And I think that's really, really key because a lot of my students, for example, the two of our guests that are sitting in front of us right now, Mark, climate change has been a part of your lives. Understanding how this changes our future and climate change will actually change how we how we do things in the future is really key. And us as well here at UCL, we also work with our UCL sustainability team.
Simon Chin Yee:And I know, Mark, you do a lot of work with our sustainability team. Can you explain a bit what they do and your actions with them?
Mark Maslin:Well, for me, the fantastic thing is many of our students come from schools where they've been educated about climate change. They've been enthused about it, and they expect UCL, like many other universities, to take this very seriously. So the sustainability team spend all their time looking at the campus, looking at everything we do, and trying to reduce our impact, whether it happens to be carbon, whether it happens to be water, and seeing how we, educators and students together collectively, can actually change that.
Simon Chin Yee:We have a phenomenal list of guests here today, and we are joined by two very impressive students. We have Jenny Wilson from the Green Schools Revolution, who has been taking part in their Teach the Teacher program. Need to know a bit more about that. She works with schools in deprived areas to help young people develop their own climate action plans. And we also have Will Wale, a student at the London School of Economics, an outgoing youth focal point for sustainability and climate change at the UK Department for Education.
Simon Chin Yee:Will has huge experience working with young people, schools, civil servants, and ministers around climate change and sustainability education.
Mark Maslin:Finally, we have Professor Nicola Walsh, Pro Director of education at UCL's Institute of Education. Nicola is a co founder and executive director of UCL's Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, which aims to improve climate education within schools.
Simon Chin Yee:Okay. Why don't we kick off? Let's start with you, Jenny. I'm really, really interested in green schools revolution. Can you start by telling us about that, about your work and, as a, as a Climate Action Plan Coordinator?
Jenny Wilson:Yeah, no problem. So to give you a little bit of background about Green Schools Revolution, it's a three year project and it was launched in January 2023. And essentially it's to help secondary school pupils green their schools as part of the department for education, climate change, and sustainability strategy, big mouth for that. And, the Green Schools Revolution is made up of like four main components. So it's climate action plans, which is what I'm on, Teach a Teacher, which I'll go into a little bit later as well, which I dabble in a little bit, wilding, which is essentially where we go into schools across The UK and help re rewild and make their schools a little bit greener.
Jenny Wilson:And then future forum, which is where we bring together like youth youth representatives from leading climate and wildlife charities, and just discuss how the sector can better engage young people. And with my role as a climate action plan coordinator, essentially, I go into schools and help them create a climate action plan because the department for education came up with a statement where they said all schools have to have a climate action plan by 2025, but didn't really give any guidance or help on how to do that. And they basically just said to teachers, do it, but with no support. So I go in and I help the schools create their climate action plan, but through a youth led approach, which is the most important part. And a climate action plan is just essentially a step of actions to help schools become more sustainable sustainable.
Jenny Wilson:Sorry.
Mark Maslin:So, Jenny, can I ask you? Is there one particular school that gives an example for our listeners where you've gone in, you've given a plan, and things have really changed?
Jenny Wilson:Yes. So there's a school in it's in Manchester City Centre. It's absolutely incredible school. They're absolutely lovely. And the issue is it is a seriously underfunded school.
Jenny Wilson:They really had no resources, no money, but what they did have is the students were so eager to make a change. They just didn't know where to start at all. And they had such great ideas. And now we're in the process of creating their own leadership and student council, which is absolutely amazing because gaining skills like that takes them all the way into later life. It's not just something that ends in school.
Simon Chin Yee:I also went to University of Manchester, and I did my PhD a a decade ago now, but actually what was happening there is they got those of us working in climate policy and politics to go into schools and volunteer our time to talk to students if we wanted to, to give a little bit of our time as PhD students in order to give some more information about what we were looking at, what we were researching and studying, and to respond to certain really, really, really good questions from all all ages. Do you do any of that sort of thing? Can you harness the power of the universities in Manchester?
Jenny Wilson:I did. That wasn't actually included on my course, but I think that's something they should definitely have carried on because it's one thing for that I remember when I was in school and adults had come into school and they told me about their jobs. And to be honest, I just wasn't interested because it felt so far away from what was achievable to me. I don't understand what a 40 year old did for work,
Nicola Walshe:but what I, sorry, sounds blunt, but
Jenny Wilson:I just didn't get it. Sometimes I'm going in and teaching an 18 year old, you know, I'm not that much older than them. It's really helpful for young people, especially young people that might not feel like a career in the sustainability industry is achievable for them. It's really useful to see someone who's not far away from them and to give them advice that applies to someone of almost the same age as well.
Simon Chin Yee:And perhaps even kind of get rid of some of that anxiety we all feel around climate change and people aren't answering those questions.
Mark Maslin:I mean, I have to say one of the things I was really impressed looking through your work is it seems always to be student led. How do you create that? How do you empower students within a school structure, which we've all been in? Okay? And it's a bit hierarchical and sort of like you have to be in lessons in time.
Mark Maslin:How do you give students that empowerment?
Jenny Wilson:I think, yeah, I think you're so right. With a lot of the schools, I think, perhaps, students are maybe made to feel like they're the kids, then there's the adults. Your ideas are good, but they're not adult ideas. Do know what I mean? Like, your ideas are valuable, but they're not always going to work.
Jenny Wilson:And I think that's so far from what's true for most of the time. I think more often in schools, perhaps we need to realize that young people do have amazing ideas, but they just need a little bit of help on turning them into something achievable. So I think the best way to empower young people, I think it's always about starting small for me and help them create when they do create an idea, help them really feel like it's completely their own. And when they realize this small idea that they've had actually turns into something really powerful and actually creates like tangible change in their school, that's when they feel empowered.
Mark Maslin:Nicola, is that something that you build upon trying to be fully engaged within the school system?
Nicola Walshe:Definitely, it's really important. Sort of everything that Jenny said I completely agree with, and we would argue that with the climate action planning and broader work around climate change and sustainability in schools, there's a sort of role for curriculum leadership, so the head teacher, a role for a state's leadership, but there's also it's a sort of triad, the third pillar of that triad is absolutely the students. Even the whole initiative around climate change and sustainability comes from the students in the first place, but that's not always the case. They don't always have that voice as Jenny's already described, but it's absolutely crucial. And one of the things that we would argue through the centre is that sort of harnessing and giving students that agency and allowing them to become empowered through education is really crucial, both during their time in school, but obviously for their future.
Simon Chin Yee:And speaking of empowerment, Will, let's go on to you because you are the youth focal point for the UK Department for Education. What does that role actually consist of?
Will Wale:So I think very much that my my studies did really help me with that role. I was fortunate enough to go to a school where we were taken seriously when we we talked about climate change. It's always been about trying to bridge that gap between policy and Whitehall and then what young people are seeing and feeling on the ground because there is or there there at least was a huge disconnect between the climate education policy that was being made and how things were working out in practice. So our role was very much and he's very much there to, bridge the gap and sort of act as a a channel between the responsible minister's own, that's now minister Stephen Morgan, and young people on the ground. So we go into schools.
Will Wale:We run focus groups with young people from, organizations like the Duke of Edinburgh scheme or the scouts. We engage a lot with Nicola and the team here at UCL, to sort of understand how young people feel, how things like the so we've the climate ambassador scheme, which does help schools with their climate action plans, but to understand how that's impacting young people on the ground, how they're able to engage with that, how we can strengthen youth voice within schools,
Mark Maslin:and also how we can strengthen youth voice within the process of improving policy as we move forward. So can I ask you, what is it really like working with Whitehall? I mean, as academics, we we seem to feel, that we're slightly outside, and we've all heard the stories. But you've been inside the hallowed halls. What's it like working with them?
Will Wale:I think what I've really learned is that the vast majority of civil servants and ministers are just trying really hard to use the very siloed and constrained levers they have to bring about meaningful change. So for instance, minister Morgan, who we reported to, is is really, like, good at listening to young people, and he he sits down with us regularly, and we just have a really open discussion about how we can advance things. And he goes into schools, and he does genuinely listen to young people. And he wherever there is an opportunity to do something that doesn't involve legislation or asking treasury very nicely for money, then things do tend to happen and there is progress. And so, I mean, I think the big thing for me that I've learned is that you sort of have to come with solutions that are cheap and ready to go, and then quite often people there's a good appetite to make them happen.
Simon Chin Yee:So what I'm hearing is, is that it needs to come with a ready made plan that's cheap and effective. They'll listen to you. I'm joking, obviously. But well, this is the thing. If you come with those sorts of plans, then perhaps that's what's when they they see this as an actionable item because it's not going to cost them that much money.
Simon Chin Yee:But is that part of these gaps you're talking about then, Will?
Will Wale:So I think there are a fair few gaps where the big common denominator is money. I think coming up with sort of clear, concise solutions tends to be what gets done. And it's if you can draw on other parts of government or other work that's being done. So a really cool thing that's happening at the minute is there's work being done to look at whether or not the governments need breakfast clubs as part of the opportunity mission that will support young people in deprived areas of primary school to access food and childcare before school, whether that can be integrated with the nature park to boost nature based learning. And it's things like that where that's relatively low cost.
Will Wale:It's just about making those connections, figuring out how to sort of cohesively support teachers to deliver that. Actually, things like that that sort of come relatively ready to roll out as an idea tend to be the most effective.
Mark Maslin:Nicola, what are the gaps you see in climate education building off of what Will's doing at in Whitehall?
Nicola Walshe:What teachers are telling us is that they really want to be able to teach about these sorts of issues, and that these are teachers of all subjects and phases, not just secondary science teachers, not just geography teachers but actually art teachers, history teachers, business teachers, but they don't have the professional development required in order to do that. They're concerned that they're going to create more anxiety, they're very aware about the anxiety among children and young people, they might be anxious themselves as well. So a real gap is that sort of subject and phase specific professional development for teachers. I would argue that there is also a gap in the curriculum. Lots of them also tell us that actually it would be much easier if we had those it embedded within the curriculum so that they actually use that as something that for those that were really keen already could say, look, it's in the curriculum, therefore I need to be able to have professional development.
Nicola Walshe:I need to be able to teach about that. I think the other gap is around sort of the inequalities. And again, Jenny's sort of spoken a little bit about this. At the moment, both the work with teachers and the work that we've done with young people are telling us that there's huge inequalities in the way that we're approaching climate change and sustainability education. Because it's not in the curriculum and because teachers don't automatically get professional development, for example, through their initial teacher education around climate change and sustainability, you're leaving it to those that are keen or they're kind of, they have a thing about climate change and sustainability.
Nicola Walshe:So they're going to make sure it's in their lessons. But that means there's a whole swathe of children, young people that aren't getting that education because it's not compulsory. There's kind of no sort of accountability around it. And that results in some of our data showing that there's huge inequalities between the higher and lower socioeconomic status of children, both in their experience, their access to climate change and sustainability, their aspirations for learning about it, their aspirations for sort of green jobs or green careers if you want to call them that. So there's a huge inequalities which I think are being entrenched and exacerbated because of the fact that it's not consistently sort of addressed at a teacher professional development level or a curriculum level.
Mark Maslin:Now I know that these are the reasons why you set up the UCL Center for Climate Change and Sustainability Education. Can you go through some of the ways that you are helping with these issues? How UCL is using its might and its weight and its education to try to solve in part some of these issues.
Nicola Walshe:Absolutely. So there's three sort of, I guess, strands of our work. The first is around research. I've already alluded to the fact that we did a teacher survey in England, we've replicated that survey in a number of other countries. So we draw on and we undertake that research, which is really important for sort of the second and third sort of pillars of our work.
Nicola Walshe:The second is around teacher professional development. So I've talked a lot about how that's really, really crucial, that it's subject specific and phase specific, but for all subjects, teachers of all subjects and phases. So we are developing something called Teaching for Sustainable Futures, which is free professional development for teachers of all phases and all subjects. And we're sort of partway through that so we have professional development for geography teachers, history teachers, English teachers, math teachers. We'll soon, very soon have it for RE teachers, citizenship teachers, PSHE teachers.
Nicola Walshe:So whichever teacher or whichever subject you're teaching, we have that available. And that's online asynchronous so teachers can access it at whatever time they will like. And then the third sort of strand of work is around national and international policy engagement. And we've already heard a little bit about how difficult that can be. And so we focus mostly on England and providing evidence and support for the English context, working with the civil servants, but also international work.
Nicola Walshe:So that might be through the Conference of Parties and COP. It might be through international organisations, the British Council, and working in different contexts to support conversations. For example, we did some work in Iraq where it's not us going and telling Iraq how to teach about climate change and sustainability because, of course, they're the experts in that context. But it's creating spaces where you have policymakers can talk to school leaders, talk to students so they can discuss what is best for their particular context and and brokering those conversations in that international setting is is is the third sort of piece of work that we do.
Simon Chin Yee:Can you give us a little bit more on that, on your work in Iraq and these and the successes or maybe holdbacks about including climate change into their education systems. Yeah.
Nicola Walshe:It's interesting. You don't kind of automatically think Iraq, that's the obvious place to go and do climate change
Jenny Wilson:education. Actually,
Simon Chin Yee:it absolutely
Nicola Walshe:should be. Absolutely.
Simon Chin Yee:The decertification in Iraq at the moment is is critical.
Nicola Walshe:Absolutely. And it's of course they're grappling with so many issues sort of beyond this in terms of their education. And yet even within that challenging setting, there are teachers there who are trying to do things to engage those children and young people with nature in a way that we talk about within our own context. So they have similar concerns. The teachers tell us, oh we haven't got the professional development, we would like to teach about that.
Nicola Walshe:They can see the changes happening in their environments as you've just described, and yet they don't necessarily understand it because they haven't been taught about the science and they don't certainly don't feel necessarily empowered to do anything about it, and that's the teachers and the children and young people. So one example, so much of our reticent discourse internationally is around greening the curriculum more. And this isn't a criticism of of UNESCO. It's just it's just standard. We talk about greening, but of course, when you unpick that, what on earth does greening mean in the context of Iraq?
Nicola Walshe:Because green would mean loads of extra water. Let's try and irrigate everything to make it green, which just isn't feasible. So it's trying to really unpick the language that we're using internationally and what actually is sustainable for the particular context in Iraq and contexts, cause of course there are different regions and different areas and that sort of geopolitical context makes it even more tricky in terms of a sort of Iraq wide solution.
Mark Maslin:And Nicola, if this wasn't enough, you're also pro director of education at UCL, and you're trying to integrate climate and sustainability education into UCL's broader strategy. This is really interesting for this podcast because it's about UCL. It's about universities. What can universities do shape national policies on climate education? What can we do internally but also externally to try and support that?
Nicola Walshe:So I think that's a really important question, and I think that universities currently are underperforming in the impact that they're having sort of nationally and internationally around climate education. Of course there are individuals and people doing, you know, work just like in our centre that we collaborate with and network, but as a sort of broader organisation that using the weight of collective universities, think is something that has huge potential. One of the ways that I think we need to improve that is through the Conference of Parties and Action for Climate Empowerment. So the ASO, Action for Climate Empowerment Agenda, has an overarching goal of empowering all members of society to engage in climate action through six elements. The first one is climate change education, which of course we talked a lot about, but then there's others like public awareness, training, public participation, public access to information and international cooperation.
Nicola Walshe:And yet most universities don't engage at all with the ACE agenda, to be honest, as a general university, I guess population, not just at UCL, but how are we also using our weight and our expertise to support that wider public participation, public access to information piece. And I think that there's a lot of work that could be done there in supporting the government. But I think what are the things universities need to do better as well is bring we engage with lots of stakeholders, whether they're NGOs, other universities, schools, governments, and we need to use that sort of coordinating role model to bring different voices together so that we can speak with the collective authority and wait and support the government with evidence and then go out into the wider population.
Simon Chin Yee:I mean, I think this is wonderful having the five of us around this table able to have this conversation. We need to have more of this. We need to be less siloed.
Will Wale:Action.
Simon Chin Yee:So, Jenny, if we could go back to you actually, when we're looking at access to those things. Right? So you work with schools in deprived areas. What are some of those unique challenges that you're facing specifically in those areas and how do you help students overcome them?
Jenny Wilson:Yeah, definitely. So obviously, I think not a lot of the schools I go into have ongoing sustainability activities because most of the time it is just on the backs of the teachers and these teachers aren't getting paid extra to run these sustainability programs. And a lot of the time as well in deprived areas, students don't always have as good knowledge as you'd hope. You'd hope the curriculum would provide better knowledge on climate change than what they have. So for example, like one of the workshops I run is on decarbonization.
Jenny Wilson:I was running this to a group of 14 year olds and the start of my workshop was I just go, so who can tell you about carbon? And not one student knew what carbon was. And you just think surely they should know about this. So yeah, so the problem is as well in a lot of these deprived areas, students aren't really interested in sustainability. It's not their main concern, which is completely understandable.
Jenny Wilson:They've probably all got so much on their plate. Recycling's not on the top of their list, to be honest. Also a problem you see is sustainability isn't always cool. And we don't like to admit that, but it's the truth. It's not always cool.
Jenny Wilson:People, young kids are all do mean?
Mark Maslin:Look people sitting around this table. We are deeply cool. Honestly.
Jenny Wilson:I think it's and that's, know, I go in and I told them, I'm like, guys, I promise it is, but you've got to convince them. So, and once and you know, once they see that peers getting into it, it is quite easy. It does create a ripple, but you just have to build it up. And then eventually after that, I'd say once you start doing all these little actions, when you start creating this little wins, usually most times you can create a small climate action clip group, which is always great to see. One amazing idea that one some of the students came up with at my school, which I didn't even think about, but I thought, do you know what that's so effective is they were saying they don't like the food at their school, and they think a lot of it gets wasted.
Jenny Wilson:Completely, this is completely free. They went into that sorry, they're going to go into the kitchen with the kitchen staff and take a waste order on what food's not being eaten at lunchtime, see what's not a popular option, and then just remove it. That's such an efficient way to cut down food waste.
Simon Chin Yee:No. That's excellent. But so many initiatives that are being done. It's it's it's across the board. It sounds amazing.
Mark Maslin:And also, I I'm really interested that you don't just focus on the students. You also focus on the teachers, and you've got this wonderful, program, teach the teacher. Yes. So how does that work? Because, I mean, we've, Nika's already talked about how to try and support teachers, but how are you doing it in a much more, I'd say, focused or individual way?
Jenny Wilson:What we do in Teach a Teacher is we we speak to a lot of young people. We listen to them. And what we've done is co created with young people lots of resources to help them to help teachers understand climate change from a youth perspective and what young people want from climate education. And it's so simple yet. I think we don't realize, well, young people and me included, don't realize how much teachers want it.
Jenny Wilson:They want to learn. They want to know so bad what the students want to learn. This, the teacher, teacher training really helps as well, because it also gives ideas to teachers about, we've spoken a little bit about how we can integrate climate change into the curriculum and it gives loads, it helps teachers come really great ideas about how they can do that. So for example, like, for example, in English lessons, they can help write letters to their local MP and lobby for environmental action, or in art create art pieces from recyclable art. We could even, in maths, include modeling of, for example, rising temperatures or rising sea levels.
Jenny Wilson:There's loads of things that can be done.
Simon Chin Yee:Okay. So we we Jenny Jenny was bringing up a lot about the perspectives that we were talking about. I'm gonna bring that same question to you, Will, actually. Because how do you balance those needs, those perspectives of young people, of government officials, of educators? How does that work when you're trying to advocate for sustainability?
Will Wale:So I think it can be really difficult to try and balance those perspectives because often when we talk to young people I mean, there's a a few different sort of camps of young people, but often we have really vocal student activists that want to see enormous amounts of change really, really quickly. But actually, it can be really hard to to advance that and to sort of have the policy to bring that forward, particularly when we have this really significant constraint at the minute, which is the ongoing curriculum assessment review, which means there cannot really be any improvement on climate change in the core curriculum before that final report, which we're expecting this autumn comes out. And it's sort of a bit of a black box. You don't know what's going on in there, so it's quite a challenge. In terms of then how we try and ensure that young people still feel listened to, which is effectively the job we're trying to carry out, is making sure that their views are being represented.
Will Wale:When we talk to young people, I think the biggest thing is just trying to explain what the different elements of the government and its function are, how we try to act, why, for instance, we can't have improvements in the curriculum right now, but why we want them and why we'll continue to push for them and how young people can, for instance, engage with the curriculum assessment review, and we we support young people to submit evidence to that.
Simon Chin Yee:Are they are they able as well? Are you able to engage with those young people to make to have to give them the voice specifically that are talking to government officials or things that they can actually action and do?
Will Wale:So our role is sort of two ways. So we support them to carry out those actions, and we support them to engage with things like the sort of climate action plans for their schools and connect them with stakeholders, for instance, with the National Education Nature Park. But then we are also there, and we work quite closely, for instance, with UCL to get young people in rooms with government officials. And so sometimes we're sort of the intermediary and we'll relay things, we'll relay questions.
Will Wale:So for instance, if a young person asked me a question on the natural history GCSE, which, I tended to get a few questions about that, we'd take those all the way back up to policy teams or even to the responsible ministers and go, this young person wants an answer on this, and then get them an answer. And then also sort of facilitating those focus groups with ministers and ensuring that ministers understood what is actually going on, and just trying to make sure that the ministers and the policy officials understand how much more the young people want.
Nicola Walshe:So a good example of that is last year, Will came to us and said, is can you host an event? So sort of a policy roundtable, which was a panel of young people plus sort of an audience of young people who could ask questions with Minister Morgan. So it was sort of supporting a dialogue between Minister Morgan and children and young people to facilitate some of that conversation. So again we worked together to try and support that, and you're you're very good at doing that and and bringing in other organizations where they can support where you're not able to do it yourselves.
Mark Maslin:Well, can I ask both of you, Will and Nicola, about this black box, the curriculum review? Because I'm fascinated by it. Because, Will, you're you're trying to get youth in there to actually provide evidence. I assume, Nicola, you're trying to get academics in there. How's it working, and have you been able to get any views in there, or is that we just wait until autumn to find out if anybody's listened?
Jenny Wilson:Do you so when
Will Wale:the new government came in last July, they commissioned a a fully independent curriculum assessment review. So there is a panel of 12 academics led by professor Becky Francis who was formerly at the, Institute of Education here at UCL. I think there's also some other colleagues from the Institute of Education.
Nicola Walshe:Yes , so not 12 academics, 12 experts.
Will Wale:12 experts. Sorry, experts. There was a big call for evidence December, January time, maybe a little bit earlier last year where we we worked to try and encourage lots of young people to submit evidence. We coordinated some evidence, Center for Climate Change and Sustainability Education submitted evidence. And then there were also some in person events where, stakeholders would come together and discuss things, and there were representatives of, the review.
Will Wale:There's some civil servants conded to the review where they listened to stakeholders. And then that sort of all gone into this independent review, which is quite hard to fully know what's going on inside that. There was an interim report, which did have some promising elements, but also some sort of potentially frustrating language about this. So there was a a quote from professor Francis, which has brought a little bit of concern, which is that, if we try and embed sustainability in every subject, we risk I I think the phrase was diluting. You might know better, Nicola.
Will Wale:But sort of there's a risk that we we might not have. It might not be as effective if it's in every subject, which is something that a lot of climate change educators and stakeholders like myself are slightly concerned by. But to answer your question more directly, we sort of don't know exactly what the review will recommend, and even once the review has made its recommendations, they'll still then be the policy flexibility to act on it. It's not there to make the policy, it's there to recommend what should happen.
Nicola Walshe:Yeah, so I think that's a really good summary. Think it's really difficult, you're trying to imagine various possibilities of what might come out in the autumn and then trying to insert information, evidence, support for teachers, schools, professional bodies, subject associations who might then have to do whatever they have to do with the outcome. So it's really, really using the power and influence that we have, but also using the fact that we can bring together evidence where there is no evidence, then thinking, okay, we're a university, we can go and find more evidence. An example of that is the student survey I talked about earlier. So if we haven't got enough evidence, we can go and collect that and try and fill the gap to to persuade in our various ways that we can, change.
Nicola Walshe:But of course, we don't know, as Will has alluded to. It's who who knows what will come out? But but but we'll keep going, whatever.
Mark Maslin:So picking up on this idea that perhaps sustainability might dilute education, and I I love that. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep that, and that's gonna be on my wall. How do you, Nikola, and your colleagues at UCL, I would say, give confidence to teachers in whatever field that they're teaching to be able to teach climate change and sustainability. I mean, do you go about that?
Nicola Walshe:So I think science is really important in climate education. Sort of Jenny alluded to the fact that, you know, the children, young people she was talking to hadn't heard of carbon and of course that needs to come through in science. But it's not just a science problem. Scientific concepts are really important but so are a whole range of other concepts. Again, Jenny's alluded to some sort of English and art and maths.
Nicola Walshe:I think the other thing that we're really sort of cognizant of at the moment is the sort of misinformation and what is truth and what is science. And if there's mistrust in science, the solution isn't to teach more science. We need to think about it in different ways and sort of different approaches. You can strengthen, the relevance of your subject, for example, by showing children and young people in schools that actually your subject has something to contribute. It does connect into green skills or green careers.
Nicola Walshe:And I think that's really, really important in persuading teachers. It's not just something else they've got to learn how to do, but actually it can make their subject more relevant, more interesting to young people. But also it has got a huge amount to offer to climate change and sustainability education, to nature connection.
Mark Maslin:So, Nicola, that is so interesting about young people having to deal with this misinformation. Jenny, you're right at the coalface. You're working with students all the time. How are they dealing with misinformation? Where do they get their information from?
Jenny Wilson:I think when talking to students these days, a lot of them do get that information from social media. But what I do wanna make clear is often schools were taught that social media is bad. That is not always the case. That is so far from being true. The issue is it's such a great learning tool.
Jenny Wilson:Like TikTok is an amazing learning tool. The issue is young people in schools aren't taught how to use it and how to make sure the data they're getting, the information they're getting from social media is true. For example, when I was doing a workshop on decarbonization, there was a situation where students actually got in a fight over opinions they had on Elon Musk and electric vehicles. And the issue with that is it was clear they either got their knowledge from that subject either from home or from social media, but in my opinion, if they just learned it from school, that situation would have never occurred because they could have actually made a data they could have made a data informed decision on, you know, electric vehicles and whether they're right or wrong.
Mark Maslin:And whether we should like Elon Musk or not?
Jenny Wilson:Exactly.
Simon Chin Yee:I wanna bring it back actually to Nicola just to you for a second because you talked about all of these different subject matters that need to be kind of integrated together. And I wanted to understand from your perspective the the benefits of this interdisciplinary work between different subject matters, whether it be at at the university level or at the teacher level at at grade in grade school, for example?
Nicola Walshe:Sort of a life isn't split into in discrete subjects, So we need to think about this much more holistically. And I think engaging with climate change and sustainability through knowledge and skills development in all subjects provides young people with these multiple lenses to critically view and respond to climate change. It's not just, as I say, the science problem. So for me, it is really crucial. We would argue that it should be action oriented, so it should empower students to sort of solve real world problems and take real world action through advocacy or conservation, just like Jenny's been talking about earlier.
Nicola Walshe:But also that more specifically addresses children and young people's anxiety. So we can't just ignore the fact that children and young people are becoming anxious and teach more science. We need to address and approach that and open up conversations about that anxiety. And you might do that through a citizenship lesson, or you might do that through an art lesson or an English lesson where you look at a particular text. And so I think there's lots of different ways and using different subjects and disciplines, but also different pedagogical approaches is really crucial to have a much more holistic understanding of the problem, but also empower and give agency rather than just freak out or completely turn off students because they've just fed up of hearing about the challenges.
Nicola Walshe:So thinking more creatively will be about the pedagogies and looking at it through different curricular lenses enables you to do that.
Mark Maslin:So I've got one final question, which is for all of you. So I'm gonna pick on you one at a time. So, Jenny, I'm coming to you first. Okay? What do you say?
Mark Maslin:And this is something that I get asked a lot and so does Simon. What
Will Wale:do
Mark Maslin:you say to educators, students, or just normal people that you're interacting with who are overwhelmed by the climate issue? How do you support them? How do you help them?
Jenny Wilson:I just first answer is you're not the only one. Like, every single school I go into, young people are feeling it, adults are feeling it, we're all feeling it. I think as individuals, a lot of pressure is put on us. That is our responsibility to solve the climate crisis. That it's on us.
Jenny Wilson:If we don't recycle, we're going to kill the planet. That's so far from the truth. I'll just say as individuals, do what you can, do your best, try and live your most sustainable lifestyle, save energy where you can, don't be excessive, don't consume excessively, but also just remember, we could do, we could live our whole best life of trying to be sustainable, and that is will be that would not even compare to one, probably ten minutes at BP.
Mark Maslin:Brilliant. No. I think that's fantastic. So, Will, you gotta follow that. I'm sorry.
Will Wale:I think so I completely agree with everything you said, and I think it's it's really important to remember that this isn't on you as an individual. We have a huge consensus that recognizes climate damage and that understands the needs to build climate resilience and to reduce our carbon impact here in The UK. We're quite lucky to have that. We're doing quite well amongst advanced democracies in having that consensus of understanding that climate change is a reality, and we should sort of reflect on that and think actually most people in The UK are willing to at least somewhat change their lifestyle and at least somewhat willing to make those changes. And so when we as individuals make those changes, we are part of a a bigger force that is still fighting to abate and prevent the most extreme harms, And everything we do is part of that bigger picture, and we probably we it won't be perfect.
Will Wale:We won't solve the climate crisis, but we're gonna be a lot better off than we would be without those little actions. Nicola.
Nicola Walshe:Very good. I appreciate and agree with both of what Jenny and Will have already said. I would say to students and teachers actually, or to young people and teachers, your voice matters. So both young people's voices, but also teacher voices within their schools to work together to amplify those voices to school leadership, to trust level leadership, and obviously to government. Your voices matter.
Nicola Walshe:Focus on what you can do, I think, not what you can't, which very much resonates with what you've said. But again, teachers already without curriculum change, without huge amounts of professional development, have huge amount of autonomy within their classrooms to teach about this, to work with children and young people outside of the classroom. Focus on what you can do. Ask questions I think to both of them. And I also I suppose my final thing, linking back to anxiety topic that we were talking about, is take care of your well-being.
Nicola Walshe:And particularly find networks and people who feeling, feel similarly, whether you're a teacher or whether you're a young person, a student, because as, as Jenny's already said, you're not alone, but it's finding those networks, finding those people who feel the same will give you that strength and and further empower you to to keep making a difference and keep going.
Simon Chin Yee:Because you know what also helps with anxiety? It's talking about it.
Nicola Walshe:Absolutely.
Simon Chin Yee:Nicola, Will, Jenny, thank you so much for coming to us to talk about a day on the pod. It's been a fantastic episode.
Mark Maslin:Brilliant. Thank you so much, guys.
Nicola Walshe:Thank you.
Will Wale:Thank you.
Jenny Wilson:Thank you.
Mark Maslin:That's it for this episode or generation one from UCL, turning climate science and ideas into action. But stay tuned for the rest of the series or listen on catch up to all our episodes on your favorite platform.
Simon Chin Yee:If you'd like to ask a question or suggest a guest that you'd like to hear on generation one, you can email us at podcasts@ucl.ac.uk.
Mark Maslin:Otherwise, for more information about UCL's work in the climate space and what our brilliant staff and students as well as our researchers are doing to make a more sustainable future, head to UCL Generation one website or follow us on social media UCLGenerationOne.