Geologists believe we are living in the epoch of the Anthropocene, a time when human activity has become the dominant force shaping the planetary systems. Climate change and biodiversity loss can no longer be considered abstract issues. Our daily lives are already profoundly affected by planetary concerns, including global temperature rise, sea-level rise, biodiversity loss and the disruption of water and soil cycles.
For education at all levels - from early years through to lifelong learning and public education - this raises urgent questions. How do we prepare the people alive today to act with care and courage in the face of accelerating climatic and ecological changes?
In a keynote at the in Dundee, I invited educators to explore these questions through the lens I have developed over 10 years of research on citizen science: ecological kin-making. This is a way of understanding environmental education not as mere transfer of knowledge, but as a process of learning to see ourselves as part of, rather than separate from, nature and the living systems that sustain us.
The separation of nature and culture in the social imagination is at the heart of the ecological and climate crisis, and it is time for a shift that reflects upon this; for education to play its part in responding to the major challenges of the 21st century.
Environmental education
Across Scotland, there is a long history of schools and educators working on environmental education and learning for sustainability. For decades, teachers in various settings have been taking learning outdoors, integrating environmental and sustainability themes into the curriculum, and forming partnerships with local communities and global networks.
And yet the context in which we are living has changed the scale of the necessary intervention. In short, environmental education is essential at all levels, in schools but also beyond.
This is the vision driving the GALLANT project - which brings together researchers and communities across Glasgow - in its community collaboration work in inner-city Glasgow. GALLANT works with people in Govan, Govanhill and Anderston to enrich wider understanding of the connections they have to their local environments and to appreciate what changes are necessary and meaningful to them, through their everyday experiences of flooding, growing vegetables and flowers, getting around on foot or wheels, exploring emotional connections with nearby nature, and their thoughts about how to heat and power their homes, workplaces and community buildings.
This is how to connect people to the global - and what have traditionally been seen as abstract - issues of biodiversity loss and climate justice. For our small research team, working with people and gaining a rich understanding of place is as important - if not more so - than the research data generated, because by building trust and fostering education and collaboration, there is a possibility of enacting change through ripple effects in communities, the extent of which is unknown but infinite with possibility.
Our new , for example, allows people to document what they notice in their environment. They can record how they get around the city and the things that help or hinder their movements. This helps to provide a deeper understanding of the practicalities around a crucial part of climate adaptation - active travel.
This is education for the classroom but also beyond: people learning by observing, asking questions, sharing stories and acting on what matters to them. It embodies ecological kin-making, a slow, relational process of noticing, caring and recognising relationships between people and places.
Making the abstract visible
Some 15 years ago, when I began my career as an environmental education researcher at the Eden Project in Cornwall, a major concern of my peers was how we could make visible the abstract issue of climate change. Now, as we’ve begun to see the effects of climate change more frequently, we are faced with different challenges - centred around the need for a public education revolution in a short space of time to mitigate the most extreme effects of an ever-warming planet.
The primary concern of educators, therefore, cannot be limited to preparing young people to succeed within existing systems. Young people are all too aware of how their lives and futures are profoundly impacted by climate change and biodiversity loss.
Over a decade of research, I have seen how citizen science can transform relationships between people and their local and global environments. Projects from river monitoring and bee spotting to tree monitoring and butterfly counting introduce opportunities for “ah ha” moments that show humans’ intertwinement with the natural world. It is slow work, but also joyful: seeing something on your doorstep introduces a sense of childlike wonder; it leads to a sense of care and protection and, in turn, an ability to care for and take responsibility for local environments in ways often profoundly connected to global ecological concerns.
Time to step up
Education has always been about more than knowledge; it is about the values, relationships and skills that allow people to live well in a complex world. Scotland already has excellent examples of what this kind of education looks like, from the early years to higher education, from school grounds to community centres.
If we are to face the challenges ahead, we need schools - as well as other places of work, community and education - to prepare people not just to keep their own house in order but to use their voice, platforms and imagination to create new ways of living together on a fragile planet.
Ria Dunkley is professor of environmental pedagogy at the University of Glasgow’s school of education
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