The recent announcement of a Natural History GCSE in the works has caused me to reflect on the state of the UK education system regarding climate change and sustainability, especially from my personal experience. Teachers at my school made sure to inform students about climate change and environmental issues. This was not because the curriculum necessitated this teaching though - I was just lucky that my geography and science teachers were informed of these issues and decided to impart this knowledge to others.
Before I took GCSEs, the only references to climate change came from oversimplified explanations of the greenhouse effect in physics and the importance of recycling, reusing, and reducing waste - a campaign loved by corporate interests as it deflects responsibility away from them and onto the individual. Last year, the BBC Bitesize website came under fire for addressing the “benefits of climate change” in its GCSE geography section covering the topic. This false sense of balance and debate has always been an obstacle for climate scientists and activists for decades so it was disappointing to see the BBC buy into tactics used by oil companies to undermine science. One of the listed benefits is more available oil as ice and permafrost melt at increasing rates - which could have been written by the CEO of BP given how transparent it is. Thankfully this dishonest piece is no longer on the website after it was noted how awful the framing was.
It is concerning how little effort has been made in the education system to include relevant, up-to-date information that equips students with critical thinking skills and appreciation of, for example, the scientific method. This would enable young people to have so many more valuable skills as they leave school and foster more interest in the sciences, which can never be a bad thing. A well-rounded summary of the scientific method is not difficult to explain to young people, yet it wasn’t until I was an A-Level student that I became fascinated by science after learning about how scientific knowledge unfolds. This was again facilitated by a teacher who went out of his way to educate us to a better standard than what is required to pass a “taught-to-the-test” style exam.
I was never interested in maths at school and it wasn’t until university, through surveying, geophysics, and hydrogeology modules, that I started to see some real-world applications of maths, which sparked a fascination with the subject. While better late than never, I can’t help but think how if the education system was better, this interest could have been tapped into at a much earlier age and would have made me far better off overall. I still consider myself lucky though since so many people miss out on the opportunity to ever learn about such fascinating topics that explain to us how the world and the universe behave. The UK curriculum, seemingly intentionally, avoids important issues like climate change. There seem to be more nefarious forces at play that avoids engagingly teaching about science and maths, at least at most schools. Reducing maths to a set of rules and equations to memorise is very clearly not an effective way to inspire students, and the UK is lagging behind other countries when it comes to choosing STEM subjects to study at university overall, largely due to how the sciences are taught.
An additional consequence of this poor standard of education in STEM subjects is the explosion in the politicisation of science seen in recent years, especially with the anti-vaccine movement and climate change denial. People are not being taught about how scientific findings evolve and are subject to a rigorous process of testing, modelling, peer review, etc… before being published in journals. This has led to a toxic situation where political pundits can portray themselves as experts on these issues without much experience. Conflicts of interest can take root and people may cherry-pick from science to further a political agenda - as the tobacco industry and oil lobby did so successfully. Social media and, before that, the mainstream media have greatly aided the spread of misinformation.
Climate science is an enormously complicated area of science that combines physics, chemistry, geoscience, oceanography, etc… to describe the Earth System. Unfortunately, these complications are unavoidable - and now there seems to be a trust issue between people and scientists that needs to be eliminated to minimise the impact of political ideologies driving the discussion.
The new Natural History GCSE, expected to be taught from 2025 onwards, is a great addition to the current curriculum, although this cannot distract from the many problems that exist in the education system, especially before the GCSE stage. When the government implements these reforms, people can become complacent in the belief we have a government that means well and is addressing these problems. However, from our recent history, it's clear that the UK government will usually only deliver the bare minimum amount of change required to get public opinion to swing in their favour while often under-performing elsewhere.
It’s also vital that the GCSE is made accessible across schools nationally. Many schools have a limited amount of subjects that can be taught due to low demand or lacking resources to make them available. This problem could limit schools with fewer resources and compound a major problem within climate activism - that it is primarily a middle/upper-class issue. Most people concerned with environmental degradation are concerned due to either benefiting from a high standard of education or not having to worry less about day-to-day issues e.g. financial problems. Ensuring that the program is accessible can be achieved relatively easily by, for example, training science and geography teachers on the material needed to teach the new GCSE.
Of course, our current conservative government will be a major barrier to all this progress. The conservatives are renowned for underfunding education and, as previously mentioned, have a bare minimum approach to virtually every policy issue that could help anyone who isn’t a prominent donor of their party. Ensuring that education is well-funded shouldn’t even need mentioning as it’s such an obvious benefit to the country overall. However, it remains neglected. Teaching staff are already underpaid and overworked. More funding is required to ensure staffing issues are addressed and to counter the extra workload if teachers of Natural History adjacent topics are expected to add a whole subject to their schedules.
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