We’ve launched. Here’s how you can be part of it.
Last week, we launched something big: the Climate Courage Schools campaign – a call for emotionally aware, future-ready climate education in every school. Our launch event brought together 150 teachers, students, psychologists, researchers, campaigners and policymakers. Now the real work begins.
Our report lays out our four calls to the Department for Education, spotlights some of the individual schools, teachers and organisations revolutionising how you teach young people about the climate and nature crisis in an honest, emotionally attuned and empowering way, and details how you can get involved.
Explore the campaign → Watch the event, Read the report (PDF), or visit our new webpage.
Who better to introduce the campaign than Caroline Lucas – former Green MP and advisor to the Climate Majority Project:
|
|
'These are anxious times for young people'
Caroline Lucas
|
Concerns crowd in from all directions: relentless pressure from social media, ongoing post-Covid stress and disconnection, and fresh worries about finding meaningful work and affordable homes. And on top of this, anxiety about climate breakdown understandably continues to grow, as daily bulletins chart ever higher temperatures and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Little wonder that reported levels of mental ill health among children and young people are rising dramatically.
This is the backdrop for the launch of a new and timely campaign, Climate Courage Schools. At its heart is the belief that young people should receive not just honest, empowering climate education but also – crucially – the support they need to process difficult feelings, to counter emotional overwhelm and to find practical pathways to thrive in a destabilised world.
A ground-breaking collaboration of teachers, students, researchers and mental health professionals is coming together to make this happen. Because they know that, when it’s matched by a focus on emotional wellbeing and whole-school collaboration, honest teaching about the future can help transform overwhelm into resilience, and powerlessness into a much-needed sense of collective purpose.
The Department for Education has itself said that its aim is to equip children and young people with the essential knowledge and skills they need to enable them to ‘adapt and thrive in the future’. But as this report makes abundantly clear, if it is to have any chance of achieving that, it will need to radically overhaul both culture and curriculum, and start to prioritise the skills and capacities that will be needed for this new future: emotional resilience, systems thinking, civic imagination, and connection to nature and each other.
This poses a significant challenge to our education system – but also offers far-reaching opportunities to create a system that supports young people not just as learners, but as citizens growing up in a time of accelerating change. As the report says, ‘With the right support, schools can become a foundation for this transformation across society, modelling resilience, action and hope’. That’s an aim worthy of the fight. Our young people deserve nothing less.
Get involved
- 📣 Share your story. Personal experiences are the heart of this campaign. We’re gathering voices from teachers, parents, students and others to build a powerful case for change. Even a few sentences can be hugely powerful.
- 🌱 Know a school, teacher or project doing this work already? Perhaps you are yourself? We’re building a bank of real-life examples to show what emotionally aware, future-facing climate education looks like in action. If something’s working – even in a small way – we want to celebrate and learn from it.
- 🌿 Tell us what you think. What resonates? What could be better? Help us strengthen the campaign as it grows.
- 🤝 Want to endorse or collaborate? We’re actively seeking partners and supporters. Email les@climatemajorityproject.com if your organisation is interested in backing or helping shape the next phase.
Stories from the classroom
Meet Heena Dave and Leigh Hoath from Climate Adapted Pathways for Education (CAPE), and learn about their evidence-informed curriculum for climate change and environmental education in schools.
July 16 4.30-5.30pm
|
|
|
What we're reading
- Read the initial insights (PDF) from an Imperial research project looking at what young people in England and their educators think about how climate change education currently addresses and supports mental health and wellbeing. The Compass Project is led by the Climate Cares Centre, Imperial College London. Take part by filling out the project's online survey.
-
WWT have published a new report on the first phase of their Generation Wild programme, an award-winning nature connection programme for schools, children and families in disadvantaged areas. We also featured the programme as a case study in our report!
- We're excited about this new joint initiative from Global Action Plan, UCL's Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, the National Association for Environmental Education UK, and The Council for Subject Associations to develop a set of headline statements that specify how each curriculum subject supports the Climate Change and Sustainability Education of school-aged children in England. Watch this space.
Also, our friends at One Resilient Earth's CLARITY project (Transformative Climate Resilience Education: From Climate Anxiety to Resilience, Creativity, Connection and Regeneration) have developed a cohort-based teacher training, open to all, which will take place from September to December 2025. Find out more and sign up here.
Till next time!
V best,
Josephine
